
LIBRARY OF CONGRESS. 



Chap. __. Copyright No. 

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. 



CHRISTIANITY, THE WORLD-RELIGION 



Narrows* lectures, 1896*97 



CHRISTIANITY 
THE WORLD-RELIGION 



LECTURES DELIVERED IN INDIA 
AND JAPAN 



/ 

JOHN HENRY V BARROWS, D.D. 

PRESIDENT OF THE WORLD'S FIRST PARLIAMENT OF RELIGIONS, AND 

HASKELL LECTURER ON COMPARATIVE RELIGION IN 

THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO 




CHICAGO 
A. C. McCLURG AND CO 
1897 

J* 




two cones deceived 






Copyright 

By A. C. McClurg & Co. 

A.D. 1897 



CT 







TO 

MRS. CAROLINE E. HASKELL 

THE ELECT LADY, BELOVED AND HONORED IN THE EAST AND IN THE 
WEST, WHOSE LIBERALITY FOUNDED 
THE INDIAN LECTURESHIP, THIS VOLUME, THE FIRST- 
FRUITS OF HER ENDOWMENT, 
IS GRATEFULLY DEDICATED, WITH ADMIRATION 
FOR HER WORLD-EMBRACING 
PHILANTHROPY AND HER BRAVE AND FAR-SEEING FAITH, 
AND ALSO IN 
RECOGNITION OF HER SPLENDID SERVICES 
TO THE CAUSE OF 
ORIENTAL LEARNING IN AMERICA 
AND OF THE EXPANDING KINGDOM OF GOD IN THE 
CONTINENT OF ASIA. 



TABLE OF CONTENTS 



EXTRACT FROM MRS. HASKELL S LETTER FOUNDING 

THE BARROWS LECTURESHIP, . . Q 

PREFACE, ...... 13 

LECTURE I. 

THE WORLD-WIDE ASPECTS OF CHRISTIANITY, 23 

LECTURE II. 

THE WORLD-WIDE EFFECTS OF CHRISTIANITY, 69 

LECTURE III. 

CHRISTIAN THEISM, AS THE BASIS OF A UNIVERSAL 

RELIGION, . . . . • .Ill 

LECTURE IV. 

THE UNIVERSAL BOOK, .... I$7 

LECTURE V. 

THE UNIVERSAL MAN AND SAVIOUR, . . 201 

LECTURE VI. 

THE HISTORIC CHARACTER OF CHRISTIANITY AS CON- 
FIRMING ITS CLAIMS TO WORLD-WIDE AUTHORITY, 243 

LECTURE VII. 

THE WORLD'S PARLIAMENT OF RELIGIONS, . 293 

APPENDIX— DR. BARROWS IN INDIA AND JAPAN. BY 

REV. ROBERT A. HUME, D. D., . . . 33I 

BIBLIOGRAPHY AND NOTES, . . . 35 1 

INDEX ....... 407 



EXTRACT FROM MRS. HASKELL'S LET- 
TER FOUNDING THE BARROWS 
LECTURESHIP. 

"Chicago, Oct. 12, 1894. 
"To President William R. Harper, Ph.D., D.D. 

"My dear Sir: — I take pleasure in offering to 
the University of Chicago the sum of twenty thou- 
sand dollars for the founding of a second Lecture- 
ship on the Relations of Christianity and the other 
Religions. These lectures, six or more in number, 
are to be given in Calcutta (India), and, if deemed 
best, in Bombay, Madras, or some other of the 
chief cities of Hindustan, where large numbers of 
educated Hindus are familiar with the English lan- 
guage. The wish, so earnestly expressed by Mr. 
P. C. Mozoomdar, that a Lectureship like that 
which I had the privilege of founding last summer 
might be provided for India, has led me to consider 
the desirability of establishing in some great col- 
legiate center like Calcutta a course of lectures to 
be given, either annually, or as may seem better, 
biennially, by leading Christian scholars of Eu- 
rope, Asia and America, in which, in a friendly, 
temperate, conciliatory way, and in the fraternal 
spirit which pervaded the Parliament of Religions, 
the great questions of the truths of Christianity, 
its harmonies with the truths of other religions, its 
rightful claims, and the best method of setting 

9 



IO EXTRACT FROM LETTER. 

them forth, should be presented to the scholarly 
and thoughtful people of India. 

"It is my purpose to identify this work, which 
I believe will be a work of enlightenment and fra- 
ternity, with the University Extension Department 
of the University of Chicago, and it is my desire 
that the management of this Lectureship should lie 
with yourself, as President of all the departments 
of the University, with Rev. John Henry Barrows, 
D.D., the Professorial Lecturer on Comparative 
Religion, with Professor George S. Goodspeed, the 
Associate Professor of Comparative Religion, and 
with those who shall be your and their successors 
in these positions. It is my request that this Lec- 
tureship shall bear the name of John Henry Bar- 
rows, who has identified himself with the work of 
promoting friendly relations between Christian 
America and the people of India. I hope also that 
he may be the first lecturer. The committee hav- 
ing the management of these lectures shall also 
have the authority to determine whether any of the 
courses shall be given in Asiatic or other cities 
outside of India. 

"In reading the proceedings of the Parliament 
of Religions, I have been struck with the many 
points of harmony between the different faiths, 
and the possibility of so presenting Christianity to 
others as to win their favorable interest in its 
truths. If the committee shall decide to utilize 
this Lectureship still further in calling forth the 
views of scholarly representatives of the non-Chris- 
tian faiths, I authorize and shall approve such a de- 
cision. Only good will grow out of such a com- 



EXTRACT FROM LETTER. II 

parison of views. It is my wish that, accepting the 
offer which I now make, the committee of the Uni- 
versity will correspond with the leaders of religious 
thought in India, and secure from them such help- 
ful suggestions as they may be ready to give. I 
cherish the expectation that the Barrows Lectures 
will prove, in years that shall come, a new golden 
bond between the East and West. In the belief 
that this foundation will be blessed by our Heav- 
enly Father, to the extension of the benign influ- 
ence of our great University, to the promotion of 
the highest interests of humanity, and to the 
enlargement of the kingdom of Truth and Love on 
earth, I remain, with much regard, 

"Yours sincerely, 

"CAROLINE E. HASKELL." 



PREFACE. 

The Lectures contained in this book have 
received no additions and only a few slight 
changes. They are published as they were given 
in India. As delivered in Japan, some slight 
alterations in them were, of course, indispens- 
able. I have not thought it wise to depart from 
the popular style and character of address which 
seemed best fitted to the original purpose of my 
spoken message. 

The Indian Lectureship was fortunate in its 
connection with a movement of fraternity and 
conciliation which deeply touched the heart of 
India. After the work which I was permitted 
to inaugurate after six thousand miles of travel, 
in which I crossed the Indian peninsula five 
times, delivering more than one hundred and 
ten lectures and addresses, meeting hundreds of 
missionaries and Christian teachers, and also 
many hundreds of non-Christian friends, and 
speaking to thousands of restless and inquisitive 
youths, my estimate of the possible usefulness 
of the Lectureship, especially when it is held in 
abler hands than mine, has been augmented. If 
Christian lectureships are useful in Oxford, 
Edinburgh and New York, they may become 

13 



1 4 PREFACE. 

much more useful in a country like India, where 
the foundations of rational Christian faith must 
be laid. I have long believed in Christian edu- 
cation as a main factor in India's evangelization. 
The Lectureship comes in as a supplement to 
this force. It brings a fresh speaker to the 
inquiring and changing Indian life, and it secures 
for him a sympathetic hearing. Furthermore, 
well-known and scholarly men going to India 
from Europe or America are sure to gain larger 
audience than those already resident in India, 
and returning to their own lands after a few 
months of contact with the wondrous life of the 
East, they will be able to speak with more in- 
terest and personal knowledge in regard to the 
progress and the needs of Christ's Kingdom. 

The subject which I selected for this inaugu- 
rating series of lectures was chosen with several 
objects in view. I desired to fasten attention on 
the supreme and distinctive truths which center 
in Christ. It is certain that many educated 
Hindus who know something of Christianity 
misconceive it. They regard as supreme and 
vital what is only-secondary and non-essential. 
Believing that the spirit and substance of the 
Christian religion are found in the Christ of the 
Gospels, I made my most earnest effort to con- 
centrate upon Him the constant attention of my 
hearers, whether I met them in the college 
halls of Calcutta or in the Town Hall of 
Lahore, whether on the Malabar coast or where 



PREFACE. 15 

the long waves dash on the stormy shores of 
Coromandel. 

My second purpose was to lodge in the Hindu 
mind our conviction that Christianity is essen- 
tially a universal religion, divinely adapted to the 
spiritual needs of each man, whatever his race, 
rank or nation. The sensitive Hindu, who for 
long ages has scarcely looked beyond his own 
beloved Aryavarta, is not easily disposed to favor 
the claim that anything outside of India is 
mighty enough to take up and include his own 
land, with its great religious philosophies and its 
three thousand years of intellectual history. 
Christianity, although it had lingered since the 
fourth century on the West Coast in the Syrian 
Church, and although it had touched Southern 
India in the apostolic labors of Xavier, appeared 
to the Hindu mind chiefly as the religion of his 
English conquerors. Then he came to regard it 
as the faith belonging in various forms to the 
Western world of railroads and iron steamers, 
the world of fire-arms and materialistic science. 
He saw clearly some of the unlovely aspects of 
Christendom, and the name Christian had none 
of the attractiveness for him which it possesses 
for Europeans and Americans. Flattered by the 
praises, sometimes indiscriminate, of Western 
scholars, who unearthed for him his own sacred 
literature, he began to think that he possessed 
something already which rendered Christianity, 
at least for him, unnecessary. Of late years, 



1 6 PREFACE. 

during the so-called Hindu revival, he has been 
strengthened in his feeling that Hinduism, re- 
formed and purified, is good enough for his peo- 
ple, and indeed possesses a glory which does 
not belong to the Christian Gospel. It was, 
therefore, my effort to show that Christianity, 
judged by any tests which bring out its true 
nature, is the universal religion. The earnest 
proclamation of the essential universality of the 
Christian faith was, of course, not altogether 
acceptable to the proud and isolated Hindu 
spirit. It has been the habit of that spirit in 
recent years to claim for Hinduism every ex- 
cellence claimed by other religions. My persist- 
ent advocacy of Christ's universal claims, and 
my insistence that Christianity is a missionary 
religion, seeking after the whole world with its 
message of life and salvation, stirred up not a 
little antagonism. But I was not so much sur- 
prised at this as at the general kindness, court- 
esy, patience and attention with which my mes- 
sage was received. 

The subject and treatment of my lectures 
were determined by another consideration and 
purpose, the desire to furnish a convenient, 
comprehensive and readable summary of Chris- 
tian Evidences in the light of comparative study. 
The Indians are a reading people, and India is 
the country of cheap printing. And while there 
are many books of Christian Evidences, and 
valuable works in which Christianity and Hin- 



PREFACE. 17 

duism are compared, I do not know that India 
is familiar with any volume wherein the su- 
premacy of Christianity is continuously set forth, 
as compared not only with Hinduism, but with 
the other competing religions. 

It does not seem appropriate that I should fill 
this preface with the names of the multitude of 
friends, who, in America, Great Britain, France, 
Germany, Egypt, India, Japan and the Hawaiian 
Islands, contributed, in one way or another, to 
the pleasure and interest of my world-pilgrim- 
age and to whatever success may have belonged 
to my undertaking. I have come to feel that 
the empire of good will is the most comprehen- 
sive now existing on the earth. The domain of 
fraternity is practically world-wide. I have 
heard the voice of kindness within the cathe- 
drals of Old England, and the bronzed and 
lacquered sanctuaries of Japan. I have experi- 
enced the warmth of brotherly affection from 
Roman Catholic Monsignors, Syrian Bishops, 
and Greek, Coptic, and Armenian Patriarchs. 
My mission to India was blessed by the prayers 
of Christians in America, and welcomed by men 
of all faiths in the Orient. The most famous 
of scholars, Professor Max Miiller, of Oxford, 
gave it his kindest interest and good wishes. It 
received the benediction of the venerable states- 
man of France, the late Jules Simon, and the 
more venerable Patriarch of Alexandria, the suc- 
cessor of Athanasius. I have clasped the friendly 



1 8 PREFACE. 

hands of Jain, Moslem and Parsee scholars, and 
of the sages of the Buddhist and Confucianist 
faiths. The garlands which the dark hands of 
kindly Hindus, in accordance with the beautiful 
Eastern custom, placed around our necks, have 
bound our affections to the brilliant and suffer- 
ing East, and as I think of the faces which have 
been upturned toward ours, faces as bright with 
intelligence and good-will as they were em- 
browned by tropic suns, I realize how strong 
and lasting is that pathetic appeal which Asia 
henceforth makes to my grateful heart. 

The welcome and hospitality with which the 
Christian missionaries in India and Japan re- 
ceived us into their homes were unspeakably 
kind, and one of my deepest joys in recalling 
my busy months in the Orient is their constant 
testimony that my mission was in some measure 
a help and encouragement to their work. It 
would be ungracious and ungrateful in me not 
to record the names of at least five among the 
many friends who aided in successfully inaugu- 
rating the India Lectureship: Hon. and Rev. 
William Miller, D.D., CLE., President of the 
Christian College, Madras; Rev. K. S. Macdon- 
ald, D.D., and Principal John Morrison, M.A., 
Calcutta; Rev. P. C. Mozoomdar, of the Brahmo 
Somaj, and the Rev. Robert A. Hume, D.D., 
of Ahmednagar. 

I can wish for my successors in the Indian 
Lectureship no more interesting experiences than 



PREFACE. 19 

those which made my recent visit to the Land of 
the Vedas a chief event in my life. However 
slight a contribution to the religious discussions 
of our times this book may be deemed, it must 
be evident that the conception of Christianity 
herein embodied is fast coming to the front, and 
will more and more absorb the attention of the 
friends and foes of the Christian religion. In 
this conception will be found the abiding mo- 
tives of Christian missionary effort. I saw India 
in a year of plague and famine, and I hope that 
the readers of this volume, both in the East and 
the West, may be helped by it to discover anew 
or for the first time that a Divine Physician 
stands ready to heal the dreadful plague of sin, 
and that the famine of the soul may be removed 
by Him who still says, "I am the Bread of 

Life." 

JOHN HENRY BARROWS. 

The Seven Pines, 

Island of Mackinac, Michigan. 
September 6th, 1897. 



THE WORLD-WIDE ASPECTS OF 
CHRISTIANITY. 



And nations shall come to thy light, and kings to the 
brightness of thy rising. Isaiah, lx. 3. 

And they shall come from the east and west, and from 
the north and south, and shall sit down in the Kingdom of 
God. Luke, xiii. 29. 

And ye shall be my witnesses both in Jerusalem, and in 
all Judsea and Samaria, and unto the uttermost part of the 
earth. Acts, i. 8. 

Jesus ist der Christus Israels gewesen und das Christen- 
thum ist aus der Offenbarungsreligion der Semiten geboren. 
Aber die edelsten Krafte Jafets haben dabei mitwirker 
miissen. Jesus ist mehr als ein Prophet Israels gewesen, 
und mehr, als Israels hochste Hoffnung von seinem Konige 
erwartete. Er ist die Offenbarung Gottes flir die Menschen- 
kinder. Und das Christenthum ist die Welt-religion, in der 
der religios-prophetische Geist Sems sich mit dem philoso- 
phischen und civilisatorischen Geiste Jafets vermahlt. — 
Grundriss der Christlichen Apologetik von Dr. Herm. 
Schultz, p. 84. 

" A national religion," Mozoomdar said, "may be a very 
fine thing; but a rational religion is grander." To which 
noble words I would add: Any religion which boasts of 
being national proclaims to the world the fact that it is not 
the Universal Religion. As well may men ask for a national 
geography or a national astronomy as for a national re- 
ligion. — Universal Religion, a lecture delivered at Banga- 
lore in Nov., 1896, by Edward P. Rice, B. A., p. 4« 



FIRST LECTURE. 

THE WORLD-WIDE ASPECTS OF CHRISTIANITY. 

I deem it one of the chief privileges of my 
life that I am permitted to inaugurate this Lect- 
ureship, which I hope may prove a bond of 
brotherhood between the East and the West. 
My interest in this land of India, which cradled 
the old religions, and has been a theater for the 
activity of the newer faiths, has continued 
through years. Before the Parliament of Re- 
ligions was held I entered into correspondence 
with many of those who lead in the religious 
activities and developments of this people. 

Some of them made the long journey to 
America, and gave us their views of the prob- 
lems of human life and destiny. Before return- 
ing, these speakers at that Congress expressed 
the hope that I might be able to visit India, a 
hope which I fully shared, although at that time 
such a visit as this seemed a remote possibility. 
A year after the Parliament closed, however, a 
Christian lady who had been deeply interested 
in that meeting founded this Lectureship, en- 
trusting its conduct to the University of Chi- 
cago. And she accompanied her gift with the 

23 



24 CHRISTIANITY, THE WORLD-RELIGION. 

request that I should be the first speaker on this 
foundation, and also with a statement of her 
thoughts and wishes. Her purpose was to 
establish courses of scholarly lectures in the col- 
legiate centers of India, in which, "in a friendly, 
temperate, conciliatory way, and in the fraternal 
spirit which pervaded the Parliament of Re- 
ligions, the great questions of the truths of Chris- 
tianity, its harmonies with the truths of other 
religions, its rightful claims and the best method 
of setting them forth, should be presented to the 
scholarly and thoughtful people of India." • 

Mrs. Haskell, both in her gift and in her let- 
ter, has shown how broad and charitable is her 
mind and how generous and loving is her heart. 
Possessed of an ample fortune, she has made 
large gifts to hospitals, institutions for the care 
of orphan children, and for aged people, churches 
of different denominations, and societies for the 
prevention of cruelty to animals. Tender- 
hearted toward all suffering, she has been broad- 
minded and wise in promoting the higher educa- 
tion. She has founded in the University of 
Chicago a Lectureship which bears her name, on 
the relations of Christianity and the other faiths, 
and by the gift of more than ^"20,000 has built 
the Haskell Oriental Museum, the first great 
building in America dedicated entirely to Ori- 
ental studies. Her mind has taken in the whole 
world, and in founding this Lectureship as a 
permanent institution she has manifested her 



ASPECTS OF CHRISTIANITY. 25 

love to a people and a country that she has 
never seen. She has desired to increase their 
opportunities of becoming acquainted with that 
Christian faith whose compassionate spirit she 
nobly illustrates. Now in her seventy-sixth 
year, she sends her blessings, through the voice 
of another, to the people of India, and is calmly 
confident that good results will follow this effort 
to advance the kingdom of righteousness and 
love by casting seeds of celestial truth on the 
ancient streams of the mystic and memory- 
haunted Asiatic world. She believes that you 
will give a welcome and a sympathetic hearing 
to generous-minded scholars, who come in the 
spirit of love, and whose purpose is not so much 
to pull down as to build up, and who, acknowl- 
edging that the Spirit of God has been working 
everywhere, that rays of heavenly truth have 
been shining everywhere, that voices of prophetic 
tone have been sounding everywhere, are eager to 
communicate such messages of the Spirit, such 
gleams of heavenly light, such utterances of 
divine consolation as have come to them in 
connection with the ministration of Jesus Christ. 
No wise Christian believer, it seems to me, would 
uproot or destroy anything in Oriental lands 
which he deems true and useful. I am sure that 
the scholarly Hindus who have accepted Chris- 
tianity and are now rejoicing in what they find 
in Christ still maintain their faith in all the 
ethical and spiritual verities of Hinduism, adding 



26 CHRISTIANITT, THE WORLD-RELIGION. 

thereto a supreme and satisfying faith in the 
person and work of their Lord and Saviour. 
They are not less devoted to India's welfare than 
their non-Christian brethren, and they are not 
less proud of all that is truly great in India's 
past history. 

Under the commission which I bear it is my 
privilege and duty to give my message in a spirit 
of friendliness and conciliation, to set forth the 
rightful claims of Christianity, without forget- 
ting its points of contact with other faiths. I 
have not come to India for controversy. What 
I seek, and what I believe you will freely grant, 
is a candid hearing to these lectures, in which I 
shall propose the inquiry — "Is Christianity fitted 
to become the world-religion?" This is a vital 
question, and I ask you to give it your careful 
consideration to the close of these six addresses. 
While each lecture will treat a special part of the 
theme, it will be necessary for the candid hearer, 
in order to judge of the argument offered, to 
take under his survey the whole field. I have 
not come to India to discuss those great systems 
of philosophy, which are the astonishing product 
of the subtle Hindu mind. 1 Matters of chiefly 
intellectual interest are not grave enough to jus- 
tify the efforts, or to fulfill the hopes of this 
Lectureship. The ethical and spiritual problems 
are the deepest. They have a universal inter- 
est. God, man, duty, worship, escape from sin 

1 Appendix, Lecture I, Note I. 



ASPECTS OF CHRISTIANITT. 27 

and evil, triumph over the world, reconciliation, 
peace through fellowship with the Heavenly 
Father, and hope which death cannot annihilate, 
— these words suggest the main problems of 
human life. 

The present lectures deal with religion, or 
man's devout attitude toward the universe, a 
universe glorified by the presence of God. Man's 
religion concerns the being of the Infinite Spirit, 
and his personal relations to that Spirit. It is 
explained by such words as reverence, worship, 
duty, repentance, aspiration, love. 

When we consider man, after he has risen to 
the dignity of thought, we find him an inquirer 
gazing into a mysterious world. He stands on an 
isthmus between the oceans of two eterni- 
ties. Out of mystery he came, and into mystery 
he goes. He recognizes himself, he recognizes the 
world outside of himself, he recognizes also that 
there is a connection between the two — some- 
thing binding them together, the great all-sur- 
rounding unity, which he calls the universe. 2 He 
cannot rationally divorce this creation from the 
thought of creative powers, and though he has 
believed in the presence of many supernatural 
beings, he has generally, if often vaguely, recog- 
nized a Supreme Divinity behind all others, and, 
with the disclosures of recent science, he has 
reached the conclusion that there can be but one 
mind back of phenomena. 

2 Appendix, Lecture I, Note 2. 



28 CHRISTIANITY, THE WORLD-RELIGION. 

It has been truly said by Professor Drum- 
mond that "the sun and stars have been found 
out. If science has not, by searching, found 
out God, it has not found any other God, or 
anything the least like a God, that might con- 
tinue to be even a conceivable object of worship 
in a scientific age." 

As we study man, even in his degradation, we 
find him to be a worshipful being. Pre-historic 
men had their idols, and beliefs in the life be- 
yond were indicated by their burial customs. 
Thus, religion is not something imposed upon 
man but something that springs up within him. 
The doctrine of a God, immanent as well as 
transcendent, simplifies some of the questions 
regarding the origin of religion. 3 We trace its 
birth not to the call of Abraham or to the hymns 
sung by the Vedic man "under the bright sky 
and beneath the burning stars of India." Its 
origin is not with the priests of the Nile or the 
miracles of the New Testament. It is older than 
history. We say that it is "instinctive " for 
men to recognize the supernatural origin and 
environment of life. They may call God by a 
hundred names, and the gods of the Hindu my- 
thology by a hundred thousand, but they cannot 
get permanently away from the Infinite Spirit. 
They learn, as one has said, that "behind all the 
phenomena of nature there is a cause, that be- 
hind the apparent is the real, that behind the 

8 Appendix, Lecture I, Note 3. 



ASPECTS OF CHRISTIANITY. 29 

shadow there is the substance, that behind the 
transitory there is the eternal." Man discov- 
ers, but does not make, the relations and laws which 
enter into the substance of religion ; and hence 
it is true that, if all the books that are deemed 
sacred were burned, if the historic records were 
all obliterated, if the temples and rituals and 
elaborated creeds of to-day were swept out of 
sight and out of mind, and if only the infant 
children now living in the world were to con- 
tinue to live after this hour, though the loss 
would be unspeakable — Sinai, the Mount of 
Beatitudes, Calvary, all gone — still the young, 
new race would learn to recognize the divine, 
and build the altars of faith ; religion would 
return because the old heart-hunger for God 
and immortality would not be destroyed; and 
the soul, the mother of all traditions, would 
build its shining ladders, behold the ascending 
and descending angels, and listen once more to 
the songs of the Spirit. 

Religions have died, but the spirit of worship 
survives. Certain forms of faith went down 
into the graves of ancient empires, but the realm 
of faith was never so large and luminous as to- 
day. Science is showing a deeper regard for 
religion. It is far more reverent, and in closer 
sympathy with faith. The time has come when 
scientific minds have undertaken the study of 
these vital phenomena which constitute the 
main current of human progress. The whole 



3© CHRISTIANITT, THE WORLD-RELIGION. 

tendency to-day is toward a worshipful and lov- 
ing trust in the Eternal Spirit. 4 Agnosticism is 
not so unknowing as it was twenty years ago. 
"Each act of scientific examination," as one has 
said, "but reveals the opening through which 
shines the glory of the eternal majesty." En- 
vironment includes God, the chief force and 
factor in development. God, immortality, the 
spiritual origin, and direction of all things — 
these are the truths, that are most consonant 
with our present state of knowledge. The ac- 
ceptance of the doctrine of evolution has enlarged 
the domain of natural theology and changed its 
scope, though not its results. Physical and 
metaphysical science are not at war. They are 
not indifferent to each other. They are pursu- 
ing similar ends. It is not only true that science 
endeavors to think God's thoughts after Him, 
while religion endeavors to feel God's emotions 
after Him, but it is also true that science is be- 
coming religious, and religion scientific. 

We are living in a time when the question 
asked by the present course of lectures has a 
peculiar appropriateness. Many of the most im- 
portant subjects which men are considering at 
the close of the nineteenth century are either 
included in this inquiry or suggested by it. 
Studies in Comparative Theology and the press- 
ing and very practical problems of religious effort 
are closely related to it. Some thoughtful men, 

4 Appendix, Lecture I, Note 4. 



ASPECTS OF CHRISTIANITY. 31 

trained in the philosophies of the Orient, are 
answering our inquiry affirmatively to this extent 
that they are urging and promoting ethical re- 
forms which follow the spirit and methods of 
Christian philanthropy. Does not the awakened 
and expanded intellect of India and Japan look 
upon Christendom with some measure of grate- 
ful appreciation, and does it not regard Chris- 
tianity, as represented by Christ and his teach- 
ings with a growingly favorable mind? 

The higher principles and ideals of the non- 
Christian religions touch those of the Christian 
Scriptures at certain points, although not always 
very closely. 5 Good results might follow a care- 
ful statement of these principles, common to 
Christianity and each of the non-Christian sys- 
tems. By a comparison of these different state- 
ments, the elements common to all could be 
discovered. This residuum, however, would 
constitute an insufficient basis for that new, uni- 
versal religion which a few idealists imagine is 
to spring from this common content. Scholars 
have tried in vain to construct an artificial lan- 
guage which men shall adopt and use, out of 
the best elements of the greatest forms of human 
speech, and it is not probable that a universal 
religion can be educed out of the elements com- 
mon to the mightiest forms of faith. Religions 
whose origins are known have not been manu- 
factured. They have been born like children. 

6 Appendix, Lecture I, Note 5. 



32 CHRISTIAN/TT, THE WORLD-RELIGION. 

They have sprung like trees from seeds or roots in 
the past, and their development has not been 
mechanical, but vital and organic. Dissection 
neither discovers nor develops life. Reducing 
Christianity and the non-Christian faiths to their 
common principles, we bring the highest to the 
level of the lowest, cut each faith off from its 
history, and eliminate from each at least some of 
the characteristic elements which give it energy 
and endurance. The ethical and philosophical 
remnant, plus the dim recognition of a super- 
natural order, cannot be considered the world- 
religion for which mankind is supposed to be 
waiting. Most men acquainted with the history 
of religions, do not anticipate the rise of a new 
faith which, gathering the best elements of the 
others into a grand synthesis, is destined to sup- 
plant all present systems of belief and worship. 

Educated minds are now familiar with the 
leading principles, the main historic develop- 
ments, the present working forces, and the chief 
moral results of the four or five religions of the 
world now dividing the allegiance of its inhab- 
itants. As a matter of 6 fact, the faiths which dis- 
pute with Christianity the conquest of the globe 
are only four: the Mohammedan, the Hindu, 
the Confucian, and the Buddhist. I believe that 
Christianity can be shown to include what is 
best in the ethnic faiths, to have elements 
which make it supreme, an authoritativeness 

6 Appendix, Lecture I., Note 6. 



ASPECTS OF CHRISTIANITY. 33 

which makes it distinctive, and that, when de- 
veloped in accordance with its divine ideas and 
modified to meet the mental and other necessi- 
ties of different nations, it will yet dominate 
with its beneficent rule the entire race. It has 
been the mission of the greater religions, of 
those which are vertebrate with organizing truths, 
to absorb the primitive, the unsystematized, the 
aboriginal faiths of the world. In India, as the 
hill tribes and the tribes of the jungle have be- 
come slightly civilized, they have gradually 
melted their rude and cruel superstitions into 
the types of the more intellectual religion. They 
have changed their modes of living and their 
ideas, and passed into Hinduism "by a natural 
upward transition, which has led them to adopt 
the rituals of the classes immediately above 
them." We know that Mohammedanism is 
sweeping away the barbarous cults of central and 
western Africa; that Buddhism in its wide con- 
quests has wrought similar works ; while Chris- 
tianity not only dethroned the gods of Olympus, 
but has also annihilated the primitive faiths of 
many of the savage islands of the Pacific. 

With the dividing walls of nations broken 
down and their doors of exclusion broken in, the 
great religions confront each other to-day, and, 
as Principal Grant has said of one higher faith 
meeting another: "Victory cannot be expected 
to incline to either side until there has been an 
intelligent study by each of the sources of the 



34 CHRISTIANITT, THE WORLD-RELIGION. 

other's strength, an appreciation of the spiritual 
and social needs which it has met, and an ab- 
sorption by the one that has most inherent ex- 
cellence and power of assimilation, of all in the 
other that caused it to be accepted and retained 
for centuries by millions of human beings." Of 
the four great religions which meet Christianity 
to-day, he adds that "they have proved them- 
selves so enduring, and so suited to men on a 
great scale that, if Christianity should succeed 
in absorbing and taking the place of one of them, 
it would be a more crowning demonstration of 
its superiority than was its triumph over the 
religions of Greece and Rome." 

I come as a representative of Jesus Christ, the 
greatest cosmopolitan, the greatest humanitarian 
of all history, who, in His disclosure of God as 
the universal Father, revealed the universal prin- 
ciple of human unity. His God is "the God of 
all men and nations, the God who is revealed in 
nature and history alike." I do not speak to 
you as a man of another race, and even if I did 
I should feel our essential oneness as members of 
the same human family. But we are of the 
same race. Long ages ago your fathers and 
mine "were brothers, lived under the same 
heaven, watched the same stars rise and set, 
tilled the same fields, worshiped the same gods." 
Culture, wealth, civilization came to your Aryan 
forefathers when the ancestors of my people 
were cruel savages, dwelling along the shores of 



ASPECTS OF CHRISTJANITT. 35 

the Elbe and the Rhine. If to-day the Anglo- 
Saxon race is in the foremost ranks of civiliza- 
tion, if the Teuton is now a leader in human 
progress, it is because there came to him "in his 
brawny and untutored youth a gentle faith, yet 
strong as gentle, and it molded him with its soft 
yet plastic hands, shaped him to new and nobler 
purposes, breathed into his society a purer spirit, 
larger ambitions, and loftier aims." "He knows 
himself a son of God, a brother of man, a free 
and conscious person, sent by divine love to 
make earth happier, by divine righteousness to 
make man holier." 

We believe that from Christianity has sprung 
all that is best in our civilization, and so far as 
we are faithful to Christ, our leader, we are 
eager that all men should share its blessings. 
But you will not appreciate a primary and 
essential truth in regard to Christianity if you 
think of it for a moment as a Western, a Eu- 
ropean, an American or an English religion. If 
it must be described geographically it is Asiatic, 
and from Asia its light has illumined, and its 
gracious power has molded, the Western nations. 
But the word Asiatic is misleading. For essen- 
tially it is universal; it is that which not* only 
fits the spiritual needs of all races, but was de- 
signed from the beginning, and was proclaimed 
by its Founder, for the spiritual good of all man- 
kind. 

But what, I ask, is this Christianity of Avhich 



36 CHRISTIANITY, THE WORLD-RELIGION. 

I am to speak? We know that it has many 
forms and many divisions. In these lectures it 
will be identified not with a part of Christendom, 
like the Greek Church, the Roman Catholic 
Church, or any type of Protestantism, but rather 
with that in which they all agree: common, 
catholic, historic Christianity, the faith delivered 
once for all in apostolic times unto the Christian 
saints, but not delivered as a perfect jewel 
admitting of no change or growth, but rather as 
a celestial seed capable of indefinite expansion 
and wide variation. Historic Christianity, so far 
as its fundamental truths and facts are concerned, 
includes the faith in God, the Father and Creator; 
in Jesus Christ, His only Son, the Redeemer 
of the soul through His life, example, teachings, 
death, and resurrection; in the Holy Spirit, or 
the Lord of life and sanctifier of the soul; in a 
Holy Universal Church of all believers; in per- 
sonal resurrection, and conscious immortality. 
There have been Christian developments outside 
of these limits. Noble characters have been 
shaped by Christian truth, who have not accepted 
in its fullness the historic faith. But I am not 
dealing with exceptions, but with the rule. Chris- 
tianity is a majestic growth from the seed planted 
in Palestine by Christ and his Apostles. The 
truths and forces which have made Christen- 
dom are centered in Him whom the Church 
reveres as the Messiah of Israel, the Son of 
God, the Divine Redeemer, incarnate in Jesus 



ASPECTS OF CHRISTIANITY. 37 

of Nazareth for the redemption of men. Of 
course, Christianity cannot be regarded as merely 
the theological teachings and historical propo- 
sitions of any Christian creed. It must also be 
thought of as the spirit pervading these. As 
Christ created Christianity, we must know Him 
in order to understand what He created ; His 
conception of God as Father, gracious, merciful, 
and providing propitiation; His conception of 
Himself as the Mediator and Redeemer; of men 
as children of God, whose primary obligations 
are the filial spirit toward Him, and the fraternal 
spirit toward each other; of worship as spiritual 
and independent of priests and sacred places; of 
the kingdom of heaven as a society founded to 
universalize Christian ideas. We believe that 
this, the common, historic Christianity has in it 
the elements and forces which make it fit to be- 
come the world-religion, and which, for that rea- 
son, will give to it ultimate acceptance through- 
out the earth. 

And what fitter time was ever known for such 
discussions and comparisons as are involved in 
our fundamental proposition? The investigation 
required may now be conducted without mis- 
leading ignorance, without acrimony, in the 
spirit of perfect fairness, and with genuine and 
generous appreciation of the elements of truth 
and goodness, discoverable in each of the lead- 
ing historic faiths. In a recent article in the 
Deutsche Rundscliau of Berlin, Professor Max 



38 CHRISTIANITY, THE WORLD-RELIGION. 

Miiller describes each religion as going its 
own way, so convinced of its own and only 
beatifical power that it hardly looks at others, 
and can only with difficulty suppress a smile of 
self-content when it is asked to put itself within 
the same line and order with the other religions. 
This description may express the general feeling 
of the past, and the prevailing feeling of multi- 
tudes to-day ; but surely we have witnessed the 
beginnings of a truer understanding among those 
who variously represent the spiritual forces of 
the earth. And there are multitudes of Chris- 
tians, profoundly loyal to Jesus Christ, who have 
expressed a generous appreciation, not only of 
the truths contained in the Sacred Books of the 
East, but also of the devoted lives of many who 
have not known the historic Christ, or who have 
been blessed by Him indirectly rather than 
directly — that is through lunar, rather than solar 
radiance. 7 A few years ago, in the Palace of De- 
light outside the fortress of Acre, there died a 
famous Persian sage, named Beha Allah, the 
"Glory of God," — the head of that vast reform 
party of Persian Moslems who accept the New 
Testament as the word of God, and Christ as 
the deliverer of men, regarding all peoples as 
one, and all men as brethren, — who said to a 
Cambridge scholar "that all nations should be- 
come one in faith, and all men as brothers; that 
the bonds of affection and unity between the 

'Appendix, Lecture I, Note 7. 



ASPECTS OF CHRISTIANITY. 39 

sons of men should be strengthened; that 
diversity of religions should cease, and differences 
of race be annulled; what harm is there in this? 
Yet so it shall be. These fruitless strifes, these 
ruinous wars shall pass away, and the Most Great 
Peace shall come. Do not you in Europe need 
this also? Let not a man glory in this, that he 
loves his country; let him rather glory in this, 
that he loves his kind." Do not such Christian 
sentiments as were spoken by this Babi saint 
indicate that loving hearts are finding each other 
out and reaching forth their friendly hands, now 
that Heaven is calling to the truce of God? 8 

A fundamental principle of the Parliament of 
Religions was toleration, and those who accept 
the principles of the Parliament are champions 
of toleration in its truest and widest sense. The 
records of religious bigotry and persecution are 
probably the blackest and reddest pages in the 
past history of our race. The wars, hatreds and 
inhumanities attributable to the intolerant spirit 
in sincere men, men who worshiped their own 
opinions more than the divine spirit of love and 
mercy, have made the very name of religion an 
offense to certain classes of unbelieving minds. 
All races and all the great faiths have an evil 
record to be ashamed of in this regard. We 
hope that the Parliament is a signal to the 
twentieth century that the persecuting ages are 
over or must speedily come to an end. Tolera- 
8 Appendix, Lecture I, Note 8. 



40 CHRISTIANITT, THE WORLD-RELIGION. 

tion means among other things that men are to 
be defended in their right to worship God 
according to the dictates of their own con- 
sciences, without fear or molestation. It means 
that the Jew may become a Christian, or the 
Christian a proselyte to Judaism, without suffer- 
ing social or religious punishment. It means 
that the American may become a Buddhist, and 
that the Japanese, Chinese or Hindu may be- 
come a Christian or a Mohammedan without pass- 
ing through any earthly Inferno. 9 

The days of persecution are drawing to an 
end, and the day of co-operation and friendly 
intercourse has dawned ; there is in most lands, 
and I am persuaded here, also, augmenting toler- 
ation of individual conviction and an increasing 
spirit of fraternity. I believe that the unity of 
mankind is a foremost thought in the modern 
world, and that the tendencies toward unifica- 
tion in morals, laws, commerce and scientific 
conceptions are stronger than ever before. 

Ethical unification is happily becoming more 
and more apparent. The highest minds in every 
faith, when they have expressed themselves in 
each other's presence, have condemned injustice 
and oppression in nations, the rapacity and 
cruelty of strength in dealing with weakness. 
They have declared for righteousness, purity and 
humanity. And they have perceived and 
affirmed that morality is not something artificial 

9 Appendix, Lecture I, Note 9. 



ASPECTS OF CHR1STIANIT1. 41 

and fanciful, is not a matter of gesture, and 
ceremonial and national usage. It is not con- 
cerned with the mere externals and unessentials 
of life. It is something real; that is, spiritual 
and vital ; it belongs to the heart and conscience. 
These higher minds exclaim with the old 
prophet, "What doth the Lord require of thee 
except to do justice, love mercy, and to walk 
humbly with thy God?" But is the unification 
to stop with ethics? Is it not to include the 
domain of religion? If "all ideas of a family or 
national God have disappeared from the minds 
of civilized men," may not the idea of a merely 
national religion also disappear? If human 
brotherhood is universal, why may not the wor- 
ship of the common Father through a common 
Mediator and Saviour become universal? With 
men living under such varying conditions there 
will always remain diversities wide enough to 
satisfy the poet, the economist, and the phi- 
losopher. But, since all men are essentially 
alike, that is, since their spiritual needs and 
aptitudes are fundamentally the same, why 
should they not all have access to the best that 
God has given? If Mohammedanism or Hindu- 
ism, if Buddhism or Christianity has the more 
perfect revelation of truth, is richer in its dis- 
closures of God, and has organized, or brought 
together these truths and revelations into the 
most harmonious and effective working order, 
why should not the more favored religion, espe- 



42 CHRISTIANITY, THE WORLD-RELIGION. 

cially if it be one marked by essential complete- 
ness, supernatural authority, evident finality and 
absolute perfection in its central Personage, 
become the universal faith? 

One reason for the gentler spirit now apparent 
on the part of Christendom is a deeper love of 
all truth, and a perception that scattered rays of 
truth have reached every nation. There are in- 
tuitions of the Divine, clear distinctions between 
good and evil, hopes of immortality, and percep- 
tions of a superhuman government, entering into 
nearly all the religions. In claiming that Chris- 
tianity is fitted for the whole race, and will be 
universal, we do not deny that Mohammedan- 
ism, for example, had good reasons for spring- 
ing into life, that it rebuked and chastised a 
corrupted church, and that it may have sur- 
passed Christendom, at certain times and places, 
in its application of ethical truths. Christian 
scholars confess that the doctrine of human 
equality has occasionally " received practical ex- 
emplifications in Islam, which were sadly want- 
ing in the parallel region of Christian practice." 
They point us to "the Caliph Omar, leading his 
camel while his slave rides, the prophet's 
daughter, Fatimah, taking her turn at the mill 
with her own slaves," as "specimens of the 
scrupulous observance in general paid to the in- 
junctions of the prophet." Among the followers 
of Mohammed are spiritual aspirations after a 
life of purity, and struggles, not always defeated, 



ASPECTS OF CHRISTIANITY. 43 

against the lower nature. We know that the 
Golden Rule, stated negatively in the Confucian 
writings, is found also in the positive form in 
the Hindu Shastras, and that centuries before 
the Sermon on the Mount, the Chinese sage, the 
mystic and thoughtful Laoste, taught the duty 
of blessing those who injure us. A true Chris- 
tian theology is not abashed, but rather glorified, 
by such evidences of the working of God's 
Spirit. Archbishop Trench has instructed us 
that we are not unduly magnifying the light of 
nature by these concessions to truth, but are 
only affirming that the Light which enlighteneth 
every man has given some glimpses of His beams 
to all, and that ''in recognizing this brightness 
we are ascribing honor to Him and not to them — 
glorifying the grace of God, and not the virtues 
of man." 

Furthermore, let us not forget that the 
severity of Jesus Christ blazed out against the 
Pharisee, and not against the Pagan. "He was 
royal hearted" it has been said, "in the recog- 
nition which He gave to ignorant goodness," 
like that of those who ministered unknowingly 
unto Him in the least of His brethren, or that 
of the man who was casting out devils in His 
name. We are so far from embodying the per- 
fect truth, so far from realizing ideal Chris- 
tianity, that the temper of generous charity tow- 
ard men whose heavenly possessions seem to us 
less than our own is pre-eminently becoming. 



44 CHRISTIANITY, THE WORLD-RELIGION. 

We believe that the perfect Christianity is the 
mind, and heart, and life of Christ, but we who 
have so much, are so imperfect both in our ap- 
prehensions and in our lives, and those who 
appear to us to have less are at times so mani- 
festly better than their creeds that our discrimi- 
nating age, is one in which "the strife of warring 
dogmatisms " is happily lessening. 

Comparative Theology makes our apprehen- 
sion of God juster, our perceptions of His work- 
ings broader, by seeing in the ethnic faiths, "a 
part of that divine discipline by which the race 
of man has been tutored, and trained for a 
higher life and fuller revelation." "Hebrew 
prophecy does not claim to be the only genuine 
prophecy. The Old Testament Scriptures repre- 
sent prophecy as extending beyond the range of 
the chosen people in Melchizedek, Jethro, and 
Balaam. It is not necessary in -the interest of 
the Christian religion to insist that God left all 
other nations except Israel without religious 
guidance." The more the leading religions are 
studied in their genesis, their original teachings, 
and in their relations to the loftiest spirits who 
were influenced by them, the more beauty, truth 
and good are discovered in them. We believe 
that Christianity is to supersede all other faiths, 
"not by excluding, but by including the ele- 
ments of truth which each contains." Some 
Christians have been startled in discovering how 
much of spiritual verity may be found outside of 



ASPECTS OF CHRISTIANITT. 45 

Christendom. Still, in the end, with Sir Monier 
Williams, they have been more profoundly im- 
pressed with the supremacy and sufficiency of 
the Christian faith. And, furthermore, such 
studies as we are pursuing, will give us not only 
the perception, but also the feeling of the uni<" 
of mankind. 

In claiming and seeking universal acceptance 
Christianity finds itself opposed by the claim, 
and efforts of Buddhism and Islam. Hinduism- 
can hardly be taken out of the category of 
national religions. The efforts of a few Hindu 
scholars, to secure a general recognition of the 
worth which they find, for example, in the Ve- 
danta philosophy, do not properly place Hindu- 
ism in the ranks of the missionary faiths, seeking 
by zealous propagandism to gain universal ac- 
ceptance. But Buddhism and Islam are in very 
different degrees, missionary in spirit, and every 
missionary religion has in its heart the hope of 
universal supremacy. Mohammedanism has 
sought to bring men under the dominion of its 
great formulary. And it presents to-day some 
aspects of universalism, although it seems to us 
defective in meeting all the needs of the human 
heart. But when the representatives of Islam 
coming all the way from the center of Africa and 
the borders of China, after their "long travel 
under solemn suns," meet in Mecca, the end of 
their holy pilgrimage, a new world-sense arises 
or is strengthened in their devout souls such as 



46 CHRISTIANITY, THE WORLD-RELIGION. 

came to many at the opening of the World's 
First Parliament of Religions. "It is this," as 
one has said, "which has stimulated the devo- 
tion of susceptible and imaginative minds, it is 
this which communicates to all Mohammedans 
an inspiring sensation of the universality of their 
religion, and exhibits with a form they can ap- 
preciate the unity of all believers." Buddhism 
claims to be a world-wide religion, and thus 
stands in vivid contrast with the Hinduism out 
of which it sprang. Gautama's extrication of 
his new enthusiasm for mankind from the grasp 
of the Brahmanic priesthood, has been compared 
with the work of Saul of Tarsus, in saving Chris- 
tianity from sinking into a Jewish sect. In the 
present unity of modern civilization, the so- 
called universal religions are using similar meth- 
ods and instruments, in diffusing their ideas. 
We are told that Mohammedans are now em- 
ploying the press instead of the sword. "News- 
papers in Constantinople are exhorting the faith- 
ful to send forth missionaries, to fortify Africa 
against the whiskey and gun-powder of Christian 
commerce, by proclaiming the higher ethical 
principles of the Koran." And Buddhism in 
Japan has instituted "Societies of Buddhist 
Endeavor, Young Men's Buddhist Associations, 
well-equipped schools for their rising priesthood, 
girls' schools, orphanages, a contemplated school 
for nurses, and a hospital in Tokio." It has 
been the habit of Buddhism in the spirit of the 



ASPECTS OF CHRISTIANITY. 47 

all-appropriating Hindu system out of which it 
came, to borrow whatever appeared that might 
be useful, and we are not surprised that "in the 
fifteenth century a reformed Buddhist Church in 
Thibet adopted the whole organization of the 
Roman Catholic Church, and so we find there 
pope, cardinal, prelate, bishops, abbots, priests, 
monks, nuns; with the ritual of infant baptism, 
confirmation, ordination and investiture, masses 
for the dead, litanies, chants and antiphonies, 
rosaries, chaplets, candles, holy water, proces- 
sions, pilgrimages, saints' days and fast days." 

But, whatever may be justly said of the world- 
hunger of the faiths of Buddha and Mohammed, 
no one doubts that Christianity not only seeks 
to become world-wide, but must do so by the 
very law of its being. When Christians are 
sometimes asked to cease their efforts in extend- 
ing the knowledge of Jesus Christ as the Divine 
Saviour of men, and to confine their labors to 
works of philanthropy and social reform, they 
are requested to refuse obedience to their Su- 
preme Commander, to whom they have pledged 
their loyalty, and they are asked also to throw 
away the means, by which experience has led 
them to think that they can best serve the moral 
and social progress of men. Canon Gore has 
said of Christ, "He founded a catholic religion 
capable of infinite adaptation in different so- 
cieties, but appealing to the manhood which 
does not change," and Christianity renounces 



48 CHRISTIANITY, THE WORLD-RELIGION. 

itself and its Divine Master whenever it curbs 
its out-reaching activities, and hides its heavenly 
light under any ethnic bushel. As we open the 
New Testament literature, we find that the idea 
of a world-wide conquest lies at the foundation 
of the Christian religion. The apostles were to 
make disciples of all nations, and were to be wit- 
nesses of Christ, to the uttermost parts of the 
earth. The world of their thought and knowl- 
edge may have been restricted to the Roman 
Empire, even as the world of the Buddhist em- 
peror Asoka, who deemed himself a universal 
king, was confined to India, and the world which 
Confucius and Laotze surveyed was bounded 
by China. But, in the expanding thought of 
Christendom all national limits have disap- 
peared. It sees in Jesus Christ a redeeming 
King who has made a propitiation for the sins 
of universal humanity. "And the coming of 
Christ coincided, under Divine providence, with 
the breaking down of national barriers, and the 
establishment of a cosmopolitan system of poli- 
tics and culture under the first Roman emperors; 
and so, Christianity was able to leave the narrow 
field of Old Testament development, and be- 
come a religion, not for one nation, but for all 
mankind." 

But the universalism of Christianity cannot be 
understood and appreciated apart from its his- 
toric background. The Christian faith is the 
outgrowth and culmination of Judaism; its doc- 



ASPECTS OF CHRISTIANITY. 49 

trine of a universal divine kingdom is a republi- 
cation of the teachings of Israel's greater proph- 
ets. Whatever may be justly said of the earlier 
narrowness of conception which regarded Israel's 
Jehovah as a tribal Deity, there is a grand uni- 
versalism discoverable in the purposes that run 
through Hebrew history. In Abraham all na- 
tions were to be blessed, and when he returned 
from the slaughter of the kings, he was met by 
a priest of the most high God, the King of 
Salem, the representative of that natural religion 
which has always been universal, because the 
foundation on which special revelations have 
been built. In Melchizedek, appearing in the 
far twilight of Hebrew tradition, we behold a 
priest of the Most High to whom even Abraham 
gave deference and a tithe of his spoils. Here 
was truly a sympathetic recognition of the world 
outside the line of the chosen people. And, 
later, we find the exiled Moses sojourning with 
the priest of Midian, evidently beyond the pale 
of the nation of Jehovah, and from him Moses 
received counsel. And the writer of the book 
of Job pictures for us another saint chosen for 
special trial and honor outside of Judaism, a 
disciple of the true God on whose sensitive heart 
fell the pure white light of heaven, unimpeded 
by any prisms of later error which have broken 
into many-colored radiance the celestial beam. 

And, in the midst of Israel's life, there grew 
up into sublime proportions one of the noblest 



50 CHRISTIANITY, THE WORLD-RELIGION. 

ideas that ever blossomed on the stem of Time, 
the idea of the whole earth as a single, divine, 
realm, a world-embracing commonwealth. And, 
though the Assyrian and the Chaldean, the 
Medo-Persian, the Greek and the Roman 
harassed and smote down Israel, he never gave 
up his magnificent and imperial hope. He set 
his faith to music, and gave in the expectant 
Psalms the choicest books of devotion for all 
the centuries, fitted to the coming kingdom in 
every period and latitude. As those majestic 
statesmen, the prophets, lifted their voices in 
rebuke of Israel's sin, the minds of men were 
directed to the coming age with increasing hope 
that the prophetic ideals were yet to be realized 
in a perfect kingdom. Amos, the champion of 
a down-trodden peasantry; Hosea, the prophet 
of mercy; Isaiah, beholding the true kingdom 
centered in Jerusalem, administered by an ideal 
priest of the house of David, and yet to be real- 
ized in an endless and boundless reign of knowl- 
edge and righteousness; conceiving the king- 
dom, as centered in the righteous servant of 
Jehovah, who was to come, and realized through 
His vicarious sufferings; Jeremiah, seeing the 
kingdom in the heart of the individual, and not 
dependent on holy land or holy temple; how 
richly all of these contributed to the literature 
of the celestial commonwealth, and to the exalta- 
tion of Israel! 

It is little wonder, then, that Israel identified 



ASPECTS OF CHRISTIANITT. 51 

the coming of the Messiah, and the establish- 
ment of His kingdom with the lifting up of his 
own race and capital. It is no wonder that he 
cherished such hopes as the English poet has put 
into his sounding rhymes: — 

"Rise, crowned with light, imperial Salem, rise! 
Exalt thy towery head and lift thy eyes! 
See barbarous nations at thy gates attend, 
Walk in thy light and in thy temples bend; 
See thy bright altars thronged with prostrate kings, 
And heaped with products of Sabean springs! " 

In their material splendors these words sug- 
gest the glory of the Messiah's final victories. 
But, when the meek teacher of Galilee appeared, 
while He claimed all the prophetic ideas of the 
kingdom, He purified them, and founded a new 
society whose principles ran athwart the gross 
nationalism so dear to Israel. Breaking away 
from the so-called kingdom of Heaven, repre- 
sented by the Jewish state, He launched a new 
and better commonwealth, giving it laws in the 
Sermon on the Mount, describing its spiritual, 
and hence pervasive, character in a score of 
parables, placing its sovereignty in the soul, and 
lifting it out of the ancient provincialism which 
was yet great enough to dream of a universal 
commonwealth of God. His was 

"A new established state 
Greater than states and governing all states ; 
Which should not have for boundaries the seas, 
Mountains or streams, nor any border line 
By bloody sword-point traced; and should not have 
Armies nor tributes, treasuries nor palms, 



52 CHRISTIANITY, THE WORLD-RELIGION. 

But, overleaping races, realms and tongues, 
Thrones, zones and dominations, lands and seas, 
Should clasp in one mild confine all those hearts 
Which seek and love the Light, and have the light 
Shining from secret Heaven, by Him revealed, 
First born of Heaven, first soul of human souls 
That touched the top of manhood." 

From the beginning to the end of Christ's life 
we catch glimpses of the universal purpose and 
character of His Messianic work. At His cradle 
the representatives of the old star-worshipers of 
Persia are drawn to His feet, and in the last 
week of His ministry in the temple, the Greeks 
who represented the universal spirit of inquiry 
and of reason, the Greeks, in whose brain was 
the civilization of the modern world on its intel- 
lectual side, desired to see Him. And, while 
He went first to the lost sheep of the house of 
Israel, His ministry was largely given to the 
semi-Gentile populations of the North. He even 
preached to the Samaritans, and once He de- 
parted to the Tyrian coasts, and discovered a 
great heart of trustful love in a Syro-Phcenician 
woman. It was of a Roman centurion that He 
said: "Verily I have not found such faith, no 
not even in Israel," adding that many "shall 
come from the East and the West, and shall sit 
down with Abraham and Isaac and Jacob in the 
Kingdom of Heaven." It was a Samaritan that 
Jesus chose to illustrate what neighborly kind- 
ness is. It was an African who bore His cross 
over the shuddering rocks of Golgotha; it was a 



ASPECTS OF CHRISTIANITT. 53 

Roman captain who, seeing the dying Redeemer, 
cried out, "This truly is God's son." And 
upon His cross Pilate placed a superscription 
which proclaimed with significant prophecy the 
Nazarene's universal kingship, for it was written 
out in three languages, the Hebrew, the old and 
sacred speech belonging to a people of marvelous 
genius in the realm of religion ; the Greek, the 
language of a race which still rules the intel- 
lectual and artistic world, the language in which 
Homer sang, and Plato taught, and Demosthenes 
fulmined, in which Paul and St. Chrysostom 
were to preach; and the Latin, the language of 
the masterful and militant Roman, in which 
Virgil and Horace had already written, in which 
Tacitus was to compose his histories, and Ter- 
tullian his sermons, and St. Augustine his ex- 
positions of Christian philosophy culminating in 
the Civitas Dei ; Latin, the sacred language of 
Europe for more than a thousand years. 

Thus the command which was given by the 
risen Jesus on the Mount of Galilee, "Go ye 
into all the world and preach the Gospel to every 
creature," appears in the light of the preceding 
history, as the brilliant heavenly flower of long 
ages of development and preparation. Salva- 
tion, according to His teaching, was of the Jews; 
from them came the world's Saviour, and with 
them was the highest and purest spiritual knowl- 
edge. But the stream of salvation was not nar- 
rowed to Judaism, or, if seemingly thus confined, 



54 CHRISTIANITT, THE WORLD-RELIGION, 

it was only making ready for the wider diffusion 
of God's grace. His providence is like the river 
Abana, the modern Barada, the river of Damas- 
cus. High up among the perennial snows of the 
anti-Lebanon, a thousand little rills are born of 
the kisses of the sun, and roll their sparkling 
and musical waters down the sides of the great 
mountain-wall. These are mingled with torrents 
that rush from natural fountains, bursting from 
beneath the shelter of mighty rocks, or flowing 
from the bosom of some temple-covered cavern, 
all uniting in one narrow channel, along whose 
course a profuse and wonderful vegetation springs 
up, in striking contrast with the barrenness of 
the hillsides through which it passes, willows, 
poplars, hawthorn, walnut, growing along this 
rushing volume of crystal water. Such was the 
spiritual, and best life of old Judea, as contrasted 
with the surrounding world, a river of water of 
life pouring down through the rocky wilderness 
of death. But, take your stand, as it was my 
joy to do one April morning, upon some low 
spur of the anti-Lebanon, where you can watch 
the eastward-rushing stream. Soon it leaves the 
last cleft in the mountain-wall, it touches the 
plain of Damascus, and then spreads for thirty 
miles around a wilderness of verdure that bursts 
on the view like a sapphire island floating in a 
desert sea. As far as the eye can reach, the 
fertilizing stream has covered the sand wastes 
with an earthly paradise, and there on the hori- 



ASPECTS OF CHRISTIANITY. 55 

zon lies the crown jewel of the Orient, Damas- 
cus, the Queen of the East, embedded in roses 
and luxuriant in a wilderness of fruits, with 
minarets like priestesses in prayer, stretching 
their white arms heavenward, while the mount- 
ain-born stream, cut now into seven channels, 
rolls beneath her streets its cooling tides, which 
bathe the feet of little children in the precincts 
of many a sacred mosque, and gurgle in dia- 
mond fountains, feeding the roots of orange- 
trees in the courts of many a stately palace. So 
the stream of Providence, born of a thousand 
rills of mercy which converged into the channel 
of Judaism, left that narrow river-bed at the 
command of Jesus to fertilize the desert world, 
rushing not eastward but every whither, through 
wider and fairer gardens than those of Damas- 
cus, while on the horizon ever appear the towers 
and shining walls of the new Jerusalem, the uni- 
versal spiritual commonwealth, the city of our 
God. 

Within seventy years from the day when 
Jesus gave their marching orders to His little 
band of followers, the messengers of salvation 
had penetrated every civilized land from Babylon 
to Spain. The feet of Christian apostles, shod 
with the preparation of the Gospel, had followed 
the track of Cyrus, Alexander and Caesar, the 
great conquerors of the East. The strategic 
points of the Roman world had been occupied 
by the soldiers of the Kingdom of Heaven. 



56 CHRISTIANITY, THE WORLD-RELIGION. 

Antioch, the Paris of the Orient ; Ephesus, the 
most illustrious of Ionian cities; Alexandria, 
the chief seaport of ancient commerce; Athens, 
"the eye of Greece, mother of arts and elo- 
quence;" Corinth, the luxurious, and Rome the 
imperial center from whose golden milestone in 
the Forum outstretched, like the spikes of a fan, 
the lines of those military roads which went 
forth into all the earth, these great capitals of 
the old Roman World had heard some accents 
of the Gospel. The life-giving word had been 
preached by the pyramids and bronzed obelisks 
of Egypt, in the palaces of the Caesars, and in 
most of the chief cities that sentineled the shores 
of the Mediterranean Sea. 

From the time when Jesus commissioned His 
followers to go into all the world, there took 
possession of the Church, or at least of its spir- 
itual leaders, the conviction that men, who are 
brothers by creation, were yet to constitute a 
universal commonwealth under the sovereignty 
of God. Against the thoughts and plans of 
these men who proclaimed the Kingdom of 
Heaven, the representatives of the kingdom of 
this world hurled themselves in mortal hostility. 
But the Galilean fishermen triumphed. The 
Jewish temple, whose priests persecuted and 
scattered them, has become a ruin. Jerusalem 
is a third-rate town, the spoil of the Turkish 
plunderers; the palace of the Caesars is an ivy- 
covered pile of bricks on a Roman hill. The 



ASPECTS OF CHRISTIANITY. 57 

Empire of Tiberius and Augustus is a dream of 
the past; its military roads are engineering curi- 
osities, its fortresses, which reached from Scot- 
land to India, are heaps of moss-covered stone. 
The schools, where the Greek philosophers 
taught, are now deserted, and beneath the plane 
trees, where the pupils of Plato listened to his 
golden speech, the women of Athens are wash- 
ing their garments in the shrunken stream of the 
Ilissus. But the Kingdom of God is covering 
the earth; the nations that accept the Christ 
with His teaching of Divine Fatherhood and 
human brotherhood, hold in their hands the 
moral and military power, the learning, the arts, 
the commerce of the globe. 

A few years ago, an English scholar wrote, 
"Christendom to-day is a greater fact than ever 
before. You may see our Queen, head of an 
Empire on which the sun never sets, kneel in 
lowly obeisance at the shrine of the crucified 
Nazarene; or glance within the village church, 
and see the statesman who directs the destinies 
of our world-embracing dominion, humbly bend 
his head as he prays in the name of Jesus. See 
the young German Kaiser, as he acts as chap- 
lain to his crew, and avows his loyalty to the 
Evangelical religion, which is the creation of the 
Christ; or, amid the gorgeous Oriental display 
of Moscow, see the Czar of all the Russias re- 
ceive his crown from a vassal of the Son of Man. 
Or, in the forms of worship more simple and 



58 CHRISTIANITY, THE WORLD-RELIGION. 

severe, see President after President of the vast 
Western Republic avow his fealty to our Lord. 
The rulers of America, of the British, German 
and Russian empires, proclaim themselves Vice- 
roys of the Christ. Do their territories not con- 
stitute a realm beside which the grandest em- 
pires of antiquity sink into insignificance?" 

If we glance at the faiths of the world to-day, 
we discover that Christianity alone presents the 
aspect of a world-wide religion. Look at Ju- 
daism, the historical root of Christianity ; failing 
to receive the Christ, it shrank into a national 
cult, and numbers, to-day, less than ten millions 
of our race. Judaism doubtless teaches the 
great principles of a universal faith, which Chris- 
tianity, summing them up in the historic and 
ever-living Christ, has the force to make univer- 
sal. Christianity was a proclamation of the 
noblest truths about God which Israel had re- 
ceived or attained. But Judaism has been the 
John the Baptist, diminishing, while Christianity, 
its great offspring, has increased. In some meas- 
ure, it has yielded to the pressure of Christian 
forces; in Western lands it is adopting Christian 
ideals and adapting itself to the various types of 
Christian civilization. Only less ancient than 
Judaism is the religion of the noble Parsees, the 
heirs of the venerable faith of Persia. But they 
have not become more numerous with time, and 
from Malabar Hill, I say it in no critical spirit, 
they send out no missionaries to convert a world. 



ASPECTS OF CHRIST1ANITT. 59 

Confucianism, which is older than historic Chris- 
tianity, has never reached after world-wide su- 
premacy; it is simply Mongolian social ethics, 
and its strongest ambition has apparently been 
to keep within the national boundaries. It has 
influenced with its philosophy the military literati 
of Japan, but has gone little further. And, in- 
stead of furnishing the aspects of a world-wide 
system of belief, it presents to-day the sorry 
spectacle of the most populous of empires cor- 
rupted, humiliated, broken, and barely escaping 
the shame of seeing the horses of the Mikado 
stabled in the pagodas of Peking. 10 

Hinduism appears to be one of the most seclu- 
sive of all the faiths. Its followers are forbidden 
to cross the " black water," and while teaching 
a comprehensive philosophy, it is pre-eminently 
an ethnic religion. It does not feel itself con- 
strained to traverse oceans and deserts to tell 
the life-giving truth to other hearts. 

The voyager around the world finds only one 
faith in all lands, and supreme in the most civil- 
ized and progressive nations. He meets, as we 
have seen, only two other religions missionary in 
character, and seeking to become universal. 11 
One of these is Buddhism, an ethical philosophy, 
humane but pessimistic, rather than a religion, 
which appears now to flourish chiefly among peo- 
ples who are out of the line of the world's main 

:0 Appendix, Lecture I. Note 10. 
11 Appendix, Lecture 1, Note 11. 



60 CHRISTIANITY, THE WORLD-RELIGION. 

development. It exists in Japan, divided into 
rival sects. It exists in China, a part of the 
amalgam of Chinese faiths. It is found in 
secluded and monastic Thibet, in semi-barbarous 
Corea, still barbarous, though Buddha's "Good 
Law" was established there in the fourth cen- 
tury; in Burmah, in Ceylon, in Siam, whose 
monarch is the only purely Buddhistic king now 
reigning, and in Cambodia over which floats the 
tri-colored flag of the French Republic. It has 
been driven out of its native home, and in the 
countries where it now prevails, according to 
Buddhistic report, "it is in a comatose state, and 
its monks, with few exceptions, have failed to 
influence the people, and are sadly wanting in 
the desire to spread abroad the teachings of their 
great Master." 12 The Buddhist philosophy is 
doubtless accordant with some strong tendencies 
now prevailing in Western thought, but Dr. 
Fairbairn is right in saying that "you cannot 
naturalize Buddhism in Europe; it would die of 
the process, broken by its very contact with the 
climate, the freedom, the institutions, the ener- 
gies, the wholesome nature of the brawny and 
healthful West." "Islam also is an Oriental 
faith ; it cannot breathe our Western air, or suit 
our Western mind." 

Some authorities claim that there are less than 
one hundred millions of genuine Buddhists, for 
they eliminate from the enormous figures which 

12 Appendix, Lecture I, Note 12. 



ASPECTS OF CHRISTIANITY. 6 1 

are usually proclaimed, the four hundred mil- 
lions of Chinese who are to be reckoned as 
Taoists and Confucianists. Mr. Gladstone has 
given the weight of his judgment to the claim 
that one-third of the present population of the 
globe are professing Christians, and he says that 
at every point of the circuit the question is not 
one of losing ground but of gaining it. "Chris- 
tianity is the religion in the command of whose 
professors is lodged a proportion of power far 
exceeding its superiority of numbers, and this 
power is both moral and material. The art, 
literature, the systematized industry, invention, 
and commerce — in one word the power of the 
world, are almost wholly Christian." Whether 
the power which belongs to Christendom, as 
represented by the Anglo-Saxon, French, Teu- 
tonic, Russian, and other peoples is chiefly due 
to Christianity, may be a question with some, 
but not with those who see that moral forces are 
supreme ; that the power of the world, material, 
intellectual and moral, does belong to Christen- 
dom, cannot be questioned by any. 

In the partition of Africa, out of a total area 
of eleven and a half million square miles, only 
one million and a half have been left unap- 
propriated, and this gigantic division leaves no 
important non-Christian state in the Dark Con- 
tinent. Mohammedanism as it exists in Con- 
stantinople and in Africa, is not in full sympa- 
thy with our humanitarian century. With only 



62 CHRISTIANITT, THE WORLD-RELIGION. 

one powerful Moslem monarch left in the world, 
and that ruler permitted to remain in Europe 
only through the jealousies of Russia and Eng- 
land, Islam is not in the least likely to conquer 
all mankind. While it has undoubtedly splen- 
did and noble representatives, especially in 
India, and while it is pushing its missionary con- 
quests among the barbarous tribes of Africa with 
marvelous success, it is often linked with forms 
of despotic government, which modern civiliza- 
tion is sweeping away. These two non-Christian 
missionary faiths, that of Buddha and that of 
Mohammed, are being penetrated, and in some 
respects modified, by the Christian Gospel, while 
all their attempts to carry on missionary work 
among Western Christian peoples have not 
reached historic importance. The nominal dis- 
ciples of Christ in the world to-day are more than 
four hundred millions, while, under Christian 
governments, dwelling beneath a reign of law, 
and the influence of the Gospel, are more than 
six hundred millions of the world's inhabitants. 
Christianity seems to hold the field to-day. It 
has been truly said that ''the non-Christian 
nations could not exclude Christianity if they 
would, and the most enlightened of them would 
not if they could." 

Thus, more and more, it presents the appear- 
ance of a world-wide religion. A wise man must 
look at the trend of events, must watch the Gulf 
Stream of history, and note that to-day it is 



ASPECTS OF CHRISTIANITY. 63 

Christianity only which is cosmopolitan and in- 
creasingly prevalent in all lands. On every 
shore, Australasian, Chinese and Siberian, Japan- 
ese, Javanese and Indian, Singhalese, Persian 
and Arabian, Malagasy, Zanzibar and Egyptian, 
Barbary, Syrian and Turkish, Grecian, Italian 
and Spanish, Portuguese, French and English, 
German, Dutch and Scandinavian, Russian, Ice- 
landic and Hawaiian, Brazilian, Mexican and 
American, from the North Cape of Europe to 
where the sailor beholds "the long wave rolling 
from the Southern Pole to break upon Japan," 
are the manifold evidences that Christianity is a 
vital and progressive force. A large work of 
preparation has already been accomplished. The 
world is being made ready through governments, 
through steamships and railroads, through inter- 
national communication, through a better and a 
friendlier feeling toward Christians, through a 
new knowledge, which discriminates between 
true and false Christianity, through a better un- 
derstanding of the loving spirit of the true, is 
being made ready, I say, for a universal faith. 
All nations and religions find in the Christian 
system a common meeting ground, and some of 
the ethnic and some of the so-called universal 
faiths are acknowledging and adopting certain of 
the distinctive truths of the Christian Gospel. 
There has been no century so memorable as the 
present for the increase of knowledge, for the 
advance of every department of science, and for 



64 CHRISTIANITY, THE WORLD-RELIGION. 

the diffusion of popular intelligence. It is vastly 
significant, therefore, and in accordance with the 
genius of Christianity, that the religion of Christ 
has in this century of intellectual progress, when 
superstitions have been dispelled by the light of 
truth, made more rapid and memorable con- 
quests than in any previous period since the 
downfall of Roman paganism. 

But all the progress, which the nineteenth cen- 
tury has achieved, appears to many Christians 
but a faint prophecy of the Christian victories 
that await the twentieth. On the 23rd of June, 
1 86 1, Sir Samuel Baker and his party were sleep- 
ing in the dry bed of the Atbara, one of the 
tributaries of the Nile. In this dry river-bed 
they had been traveling for days. On this night 
Sir Samuel Baker was awakened by a noise like 
distant thunder. Soon his native attendants 
rushed in upon him shouting in their terror "The 
River!" and with all speed, they hastened to 
the parched and sandy shore, and soon the tor- 
rent, which had gathered its volume of waters 
among the snows of the mountains of Abyssinia, 
rushed by, and on the morning of the 24th of 
June, when the sun arose, the English traveler 
looked out over a river fifteen hundred feet 
broad and from fifteen to twenty feet in depth, 
rolling on in freshness and fertilizing power, 
moistening the roots of ten thousand palm trees, 
at last to be spread over the immemorial fields 
of Egypt, So the waters of Christian civilization 



ASPECTS OF CHRISTIANITY. 65 

have been long accumulating on the highlands 
of Europe and America, and a mighty rushing 
river has suddenly descended on the thirsty 
African plains and over the tropic fields of India, 
and the freshly opened provinces of the Celes- 
tial Empire; and the roar of the oncoming tor- 
rent appears to some of us a new fulfilment of 
Ezekiel's vision of a sacred stream, which shall 
go out into the east country and down into the 
desert, healing the waters of the bitter sea. 



THE WORLD-WIDE EFFECTS OF 
CHRISTIANITY. 



The science of Comparative Religion is the direct off- 
spring of the religion of Jesus. It is distinctively Christian 
Science. — The Religions of Japan, Griffis, p. 4. 

The secret of Jesus was the unswerving, uncompromis- 
ing, practical, idealism with which He faced the evils of life 
and the darkness of death, and refused to regard them as 
other than weapons in the hand of an omnipotent goodness 
which, in spite of them, and through them, is irresistibly 
realizing its divine purpose. — The Evolution of Religion, 
Vol II, p. 88, Edward Caird. 

The fairer comparison of civilizations and revelations is 
not gained by looking down from the words of Christ to 
their fruits in the government of the western world, but 
by looking up from the fruits of the East to the fruits of the 
West, and from the words of Confucius to the words of 
Christ. Until that far-off day when words and deeds are 
synonyms this is the first principle of comparison. Each 
must be compared with its own kind. — The Shadow Christ, 
Gerald Stanley Lee, p. 4. 

The impression left upon us is one of perpetual hope. 
We find Jesus eating and drinking, and taking part in the 
festivities of earth, and no time warning us that desire is 
evil ; on the contrary, rather encouraging us to be as full 
as possible of desire, to live the largest possible life; not 
bidding us reduce life to its lowest terms, and blot out 
impulse, but rather to seek to be filled with His own trium- 
phant fullness.— Prof. George H. Palmer. 



SECOND LECTURE. 

THE WORLD-WIDE EFFECTS OF CHRISTIANITY. 

In the first Lecture, I invited your attention to 
the universal aspects of Christianity. Although 
at one period the Roman paganism, and at a 
later Mohammedanism, occupied more of the 
earth's habitable surface than Christendom, and 
although it is easy to overestimate the argument 
for the truth and fitness of any belief from its 
wide acceptance, still the great religions have 
been acting upon each other and upon the world 
through such a vast stretch of time, that it is 
not without significance that the nations that 
have accepted the Christian faith hold in their 
hands the civilization and the practical sove- 
reignty of the globe. 

Professor Kuenen has said that "if there is no 
universal language, there certainly are universal 
religions." It appears to me more accurate to 
speak of these faiths, as Kuenen sometimes does, 
as "international " religions, since, looked at 
geographically, only one of them appears at 
present to deserve the name "universal." A 
few years ago, in Boston, were gathered a com- 
pany of Christian converts from many nations, 

69 



7© CHRISTIANITY, THE WORLD-RELIGION. 

and from all the great continents, and, in nearly 
a score of languages, they sang together, in the 
spirit of those early Bithynian disciples whom 
Pliny mentions, a hymn in praise of the Christ. 
Probably no such testimony to the wide diffusion 
and spiritual unity of any other faith than the 
Christian could have been offered in any period 
of its history. 

Christianity has already been accepted by 
so many races of men, and has prevailed over so 
many other religions, at least in individual cases, 
that it hardly seems safe to argue with Herbert 
Spencer that every religion is the best which its 
followers could hold and practice in that stage of 
their development. And it seems like playing 
with history for another to write: ''No nation 
can part with its religion without destroying its 
mental continuity and cutting itself off in a fatal 
way from the sources of its strength." Without 
denying the providential character of other faiths, 
we cannot be certain that they are the best which 
their peoples can at present possess. The na- 
tions among whom Christianity now prevails had 
other religions which they left with moral ad- 
vantage. It may be true that Mohammedanism 
"accomplished more for Arabia in a few years 
than Christianity had accomplished in centuries." 
But, what sort of Christianity was it, and how 
generally was it received? A faith like Islam 
may make swifter progress among certain peoples 
than Christianity, and it must be said regarding 



EFFECTS OF CHRISTIANITY. 7 1 

Mohammedanism that, while it secured sudden 
progress, it was only up to a certain limit, when 
it ceased to advance. After men have attained 
in large measure the ideal of a religion, unless 
that ideal is a continually expanding one, their 
future improvement is barred. The Arabian 
Moslems certainly found in Islam something that 
was good, and, as is often the case, the good 
proved the enemy of the best. 1 Every fair- 
minded student must acknowledge that the his- 
tory of all religions has been a record of good and 
evil strangely blended. But whatever may 
be justly said of the evil effects which have 
accompanied religion, it is undoubtedly true 
that all the civilizations have had some kind 
of a religion as their basis. The Sacred Books 
of the Hindus preceded all East Indian cul- 
ture, and the oldest monuments of Egypt 
were built on the faith that man does not 
spring from the dust. The literature of ancient 
Greece rose out of the heart of the Greek the- 
ology. The poetry of Homer, whose blind eyes 
were ever turned toward Olympus, was the 
groundwork of Hellenic culture and the cradle of 
Hellenic civilization. Back of the glory of Moor- 
ish art and letters were the glow and energy of 
religious enthusiasm. The better conditions of 
society which we now enjoy in Christendom, and 
the majestic energies of science put forth in the 
discovery and application of truth, have had no 
1 Appendix, Lecture II, Note I. 



72 CHRISTIANITT, THE WORLD-RELIGION. 

shallow origin. They have not risen from the 
impulse which says, "Let us eat and drink, for 
to-morrow we die." It is rather the spirit which 
has linked man to supernal realms which has 
stimulated to earnest search and benevolent 
activity. 

Dean Farrar, in a panegyric which it seems to 
me no intelligent man would think of applying 
to any other faith, calls civilization the secular 
name for Christianity, and scientific students of 
social progress, like Benjamin Kidd, have found 
the main-spring of human advancement in the 
altruistic forces of religion. How futile is the 
attempt to separate from the renovating efficacy 
of the Christian faith the marvelous advances 
which have been made since the savage forefa- 
thers of the Anglo-Saxon peoples roamed the 
dank forests along the Baltic Sea! Englishmen 
and Americans are the descendants of savages to 
whom the Christian Gospel was carried by men 
possessed with the spirit of Henry Martyn and 
Adoniram Judson. My father's grandfather 
lived in the colonial period of American history. 
His grandfather was a subject of Queen Eliza- 
beth. His father at the twelfth remove, was a 
Norman invader or a Saxon patriot when the 
battle of Hastings was fought in 1066. His 
father of the twelfth remove was either a piratical 
Norseman, the terror of land and sea, or a sub- 
ject of that Saxon King Ethelbert, to whose 
island the Abbot Augustine and forty other mis- 



EFFECTS OF CHRISTIANITY. 73 

sionaries were sent by Gregory the Great in the 
sixth century. Canterbury became the cradle of 
British Christianity, a center of light, such as Beirut 
is to-day to the Arabic-speaking world. Long 
and weary and uncertain was the battle of Christ 
with Woden, the word of God with Saxon heath- 
enism. That heathenism, Mr. Spencer to the con- 
trary, was not the best of which the Saxon people 
were then capable, aided by the Divine Spirit, 
working with the truth as it is in Christ. Chris- 
tian hearts in Rome brooded over the pagan bar- 
barism of England, and prayed and toiled for the 
conversion of my Saxon forefathers, just as 
Christian hearts in London, in our lifetime, have 
brooded over the pagan barbarism of Madagas- 
car. Speaking generally, we may say that what 
in large measure makes the peoples of Saxon 
origin to differ from their fierce and bloody an- 
cestors who fought in the forests of England and 
Germany, is the Christian labors of men who 
believed, with a certain Roman citizen born in 
Tarsus and converted at Damascus, that they 
were debtors to preach Christ to the barbarians. 
In this Lecture I shall try to indicate some of 
the world-wide effects of Christianity which tend 
to support the thesis that this faith is the world- 
religion, peerless, supreme, final. Among other 
tests which must be applied to religions is their 
success or failure in bringing men into harmony 
with God and into high and noble relations with 
each other. But I am not at this time to con- 



74 CHRISTIANITY', THE WORLD-RELIGION. 

demn a system simply because it is not the most 
perfect in its revelation of the Divine Person- 
ality, for I recognize the working of the law of 
evolution, and remember, from the connection 
of Christianity with Judaism that "men on a 
large scale are not always ripe for the highest 
religion ; that there is a fullness of time which it 
may take four thousand years to produce." I 
would, however, limit this to nations, making 
exceptions of individuals. Furthermore, I con- 
tend that Christianity must not be judged from 
its effects upon those who have not received it, 
or who have received it in some inferior form. 
We may even grant, with Cardinal Newman, the 
difficulty of showing, "that Christianity has at 
any time been of any great spiritual advantage 
to the world at large." Certainly, if the world 
at large refuses to receive the Christ, and to con- 
form to His law, we may not look for spiritual 
advantages of any decisive character. Still there 
may be, and there may be shown to be, moral 
and social effects of immense value, inseparable 
from the diffusion of Christianity even among 
the rejectors of its claims, just as medical mis- 
sionaries have brought many of the priceless 
benefits of Western science to thousands cursed 
with the superstitions, witchcrafts and unuttera- 
ble terrors linked with the practice of medicine in 
Africa and China. 

But still other cautions are required. One is 
this, that no religion, whether Hinduism or 



EFFECTS OF CHRISTIANITT. 75 

Buddhism, Mohammedanism or Fetichism, is to 
be judged solely by its errors and defects. Is it 
not easily possible to draw such a picture of 
Christendom from the revelations made by Gen- 
eral William Booth of Darkest London, and Dr. 
Parkhurst of Darkest New York, and Mr. Wil- 
liam T. Stead of Darkest Chicago, supplemented 
by the horrible stains of crime and unspeakable 
vice which defile our recent journalism, that non- 
Christian nations should sincerely regard Chris- 
tianity as a deplorable failure? The opponents 
of our faith in Christian lands have often out- 
raged our sense of justice by parading the long 
list of wars and crimes and persecutions and 
inquisitions and superstitions and bigotries which 
have marked the annals of Christendom. It 
need not be said to you that all these iniquities 
are transgressions of the fundamental law of 
Christianity, the law of love to God and man. 
We believe that Christ Himself in His life, spirit 
and teaching is the substance of our faith ; He 
brings to us the doctrine of God's Fatherhood 
and makes it real; He brings to us the doctrine 
of God's spirituality, and delivers us from formal- 
ism; He brings to us the doctrine of God's right- 
eousness, and forbids our cherishing evil. He 
teaches in His own life the supremacy of love, 
and He illustrates the spirit of self-sacrifice. He 
sets forth the dignity and divine worth of man — 
of man not as one of the sexes, but as including 
both. He gives a new honor to womanhood 



76 CHRISTIANITY, THE WORLD-RELIGIOX. 

and to childhood. His instruction is meant to 
regenerate the household, and to remold society. 
He sets forth the vital importance of fidelity, in- 
ward purity, and mutual kindness. He illus- 
trates in His life the law of forgiveness, and by 
His death He makes redemption an actual thing, 
an accomplished fact, for all who will receive it, 
and by His resurrection He brings the life im- 
mortal into new and abiding radiance. There- 
fore, whatever, in any degree, is contrary to the 
reigning spirit and the foundation principles of 
Jesus Christ, is a failure to illustrate the legiti- 
mate effects of Christianity. 

It must never be forgotten that the stream of 
divine life has been flowing through the cor- 
rupted hearts of men. As the River Jordan, 
that gushes from the rocky cavern at the base of 
Mount Hermon, is of crystalline clearness, 
sparkling with the joy of new-born sunlight in 
the east, but when its winding course is finished, 
has become a muddy stream covered at times 
with driftwood rushing into the Dead Sea; so 
Christianity entered a corrupt and decrepit 
world, a stream of living water casting up a lux- 
uriant vegetation along its banks. But soon, 
and for many years, it was compelled, as it were, 
to run underground. While the Caesars ruled in 
palace and Colosseum, the Church of God, the 
true life of old Rome, was singing its hymns, 
and burying its dead beneath inscriptions of im- 
mortal hope in the labyrinthine catacombs under 



EFFECTS OF CHRISTIANITY. 77 

the Seven Hills. But, at last, in God's own 
time, the Church rose to the surface, the under- 
ground flood was pressed up through the polluted 
soil of the city of abominations. Do you won- 
der that it was stained? And so it has been in 
some measure ever since. Christendom has not 
been the Christianity which lay in the mind of 
its Founder. Suppose a great musician leaves 
an oratorio as the transcript of his best genius 
and noblest thought, and a thousand singers are 
gathered together to render it, and some of 
them are ignorant, and others are careless, and 
others of them intentionally sing false notes, and 
only one-half of the performers are in thorough 
sympathy with the master's mind — what would 
result? Doubtless a skilled ear could detect 
noble harmonies in the midst of wretched dis- 
cords, but every just man would say, ''This is 
not the oratorio as it lay in the mind of Handel 
or Mendelssohn. Give me faithful and sympa- 
thetic hearts, and I will pour forth a multitudinous 
chorus, sweet and sublime as the angels' song in 
Bethlehem." If the critics of the Christian re- 
ligion would study the genius of the Gospel, 
and its ethical principles, they might gain juster 
conceptions. A chemist who explores only a 
poisoned atmosphere is not likely to understand 
the properties of air. Suppose some brilliant 
babbler in science should have the following ex- 
perience: he sits by his evening lamp, — a gust 
of wind blows it out ; he walks the street, — the 



78 CHRISTIANITT, THE WORLD-RELIGION. 

cold air chills him ; he ascends a mountain, — the 
thin air makes him gasp for breath ; he crosses 
the ocean, — a hurricane imperils the ship; he 
descends into an English coal-pit, — the choke- 
damp endangers his life; he crosses the Cam- 
pagna of Rome, — a deadly wind withers his 
strength; he looks down into Vesuvius, — a sul- 
phurous gust half chokes him. Whereupon he 
returns to his home, and having thought over 
all his painful experiences with the atmosphere, 
he takes the platform, and announces his con- 
viction that air is the great curse of the world ! 
Fools listen, and applaud, forgetting that in this 
vast ethereal ocean, from the beginning of 
recorded time man has moved and had his being, 
and that without it "all life dies, death lives, and 
nature breeds perverse." Religion is the atmo- 
sphere in which humanity lives, and rather than 
dispense with it, we can well endure the thin air 
of ritualism, the cold fogs of bigotry, and even 
the noxious vapors of cruel superstition. 

I put forward this plea and present these 
facts not in behalf of Christianity only, but also 
of that larger world of religion which still lies 
outside of it. Dr. Martin, President of the Im- 
perial University in Peking, has recently written : 
"In the most frigid zones of the non-Christian 
world there are warm currents that rise toward 
the sun, and in the warmer spiritual atmosphere 
of Christendom are there not cold currents that 
set away from Him?" And he adds that "It is 



EFFECTS OF CHRISTIANITT. jg 

a mistake to imagine that the Holy Ghost con- 
fines His operations within the forms of Chris- 
tianity. In non-Christian countries His presence 
is like electric fluid in the atmosphere, while in 
Christendom it is like that fluid circulating 
through a network of wires, and responding to 
the human touch, in producing light, heat and 
power." 

Many of the best religions of the world have 
been treated like criminals, they have been esti- 
mated by their worst faults, and those who do 
this have justly been compared to men "who 
judge of the health of a people from its hospitals, 
or its morality from its prisons. ' ' The fact that 
the ethical codes of nearly all the great faiths 
resemble each other in many things is known to 
students, and, as Dr. Washburn of Constantinople 
has said, ' ' so far from being discouraging to Chris- 
tians, it is one of the principal grounds of our 
faith in God's purpose to redeem the whole 
world." 

But while religions are not to be judged solely 
by their worst results or accompaniments, on the 
other hand they must not be estimated merely 
by the brighter and more beneficent effects 
which the zealous advocate is able to discover 
and point out. The Editor of The Hindu of 
Madras wrote recently that if Christianity is. to 
be judged only by the ideal of Christ, and not 
by Christendom, "let Hinduism be judged also 
by its highest ideals" and, he would doubtless 



80 CHRISTIANITY, THE WORLD-RELIGION. 

add, by its highest effects. But this appears to 
me an incomplete test, and hence a partly mis- 
leading one for any religion. By omitting all 
the evil and emphasizing all that is more gra- 
cious and lofty in the history for example of 
Islam and of Hinduism, splendid, but after all 
untruthful pictures may be drawn, and have 
been drawn of these faiths. 2 It is necessary in 
order to understand a religion, to discover its 
fundamental ideas and its working forces, as well 
as the results associated with it. We must dis- 
cover what are the legitimate fruits, and what are 
the incidents or the accidents of the historic 
development of a faith. Other causes co-operate 
with religion, and their force must be estimated. 
We are not afraid to have Christianity compared 
with other systems by any series of tests which 
will help us to bring out the truth. 3 These tests 
must include the fundamental ethical and spir- 
itual ideas of each faith, its incomplete and 
ignoble teachings, if there be such, the spiritual 
dynamics of each through which its ideals be- 
come realized, the best effects which each faith 
can show, and what I may call the average 
results, its working through long ages on great 
masses of people, in other words its vital rela- 
tion to civilization, enlightenment, liberty and 
progress. 

It will thus be seen that discriminating judg- 

2 Appendix, Lecture II, Note 2. 

3 Appendix, Lecture II, Note 3. 



EFFECTS OF CHRISTIANIT1". 8 1 

ment is required in handling so complex a sub- 
ject as the world-wide effects of Christianity 
compared with those of other faiths. Not one 
of them is seen in the moral perfection which is 
its ideal. Of the religions which now oppose 
Christian progress it may be said that the higher 
principles discoverable in their sacred books sur- 
pass their attainments and their present popular 
standards. At the same time, there may be 
certain fundamental errors and vices, or a certain 
lack of spiritual propulsion in the ethnic creed, 
sterilizing the beneficent results, and crippling 
the moral progress which might have been ex- 
pected from the ideal. 

The divine forces of Christianity have ever 
been opposed by secular, sensual, and it may be 
diabolic powers and agencies, and sometimes the 
lower prevails over the higher, and often the two 
are mingled. Noble truths and vilest corruptions 
appear side by side. Not every child brought 
up in a Christian household embodies the Chris- 
tian spirit, and much that has called itself Chris- 
tian is only baptized paganism of a poor quality. 
Look for example at the Christianity that is 
found in Abyssinia. It is lacking in life and 
energy; it is as mechanical as an ox-cart, as in- 
flexible as a granite bowlder. When compared 
with an aggressive Mohammedanism it seems like 
a mummy by the side of an enthusiastic devotee. 
" There may be four million Monophysite Chris- 
tians in Africa " it has been said, ''but so far as 



82 CHRISTIANITY, THE WORLD-RELIGION. 

shaping the future of the continent is concerned 
they might as well be reckoned sarcophagites. " 
Christendom still is far behind the idea of Christ. 
"Never," says Max Miiller, "shall I forget the 
\ deep despondency of a Hindu convert, a real 
martyr to his faith, who had pictured to himself 
from the pages of the New Testament what a 
Christian country must be, and who, when he 
came to Europe, found everything so different 
from what he imagined in his lonely meditations 
at Benares! It was the Bible only that saved 
him from returning to his old religion and 
helped him discern beneath theological futilities, 
accumulated during nearly two thousand years, 
beneath Pharisaical hypocrisy, infidelity, and 
want of charity, the buried but still life-giving 
seed committed to the earth by Christ and His 
Apostles." 4 

Christianity in its worst aspects has been at 
times inferior to other religions. 5 How often 
have we beheld the Church arrayed in cruel 
antagonism against the Jew, when the Christ 
within us, like the Christ in the heavens, has 
taken part with the persecuted Israelite against 
an un-Christian Christendom ! 

But it should here be said that the Founder of 
our faith expected what has occurred, the pres- 
ent condition where we see the crop of tares un- 
eradicated, the noxious darnel growing beside 

4 Appendix, Lecture II, Note 4. 
6 Appendix, Lecture II, Note 5. 



EFFECTS OF CHRISTIANITT. 83 

the wheat, the poisonous weed flourishing rankly 
in close proximity to the heavenly grain. All 
this was not unforeseen by the Lord who de- 
clared that the good seed and the evil were to 
grow together until the harvest. While Jesus 
prophesied that the whole mass is to be leavened 
with the Gospel, that the Kingdom of Heaven 
is to compass the earth, still a state of perfect 
being is not seen under the present dispensation 
of the world. 

Furthermore, where the aims are so high, and 
the life so vigorous and profuse, the contrasts 
are liable to be most vivid and startling. Every 
opportunity for the greatest good becomes an 
occasion also for the rankest evil. Where the 
lambs bleat, the wolves howl; where the herds 
feed, the lions roar. And St. Augustine, who 
wrote against the fiery intolerance which pro- 
claimed that the tares must be forcibly uprooted, 
and that discipline must be remorselessly severe, 
and that intellectual and moral heresies must not 
be endured, affirmed for our consolation that 
while the Church should be holy, they only are 
its true members who are in living fellowship 
with Christ. Others may press upon Him as did 
the thronging multitudes, but they do not touch 
Him as did the believing woman on whom His 
virtue streamed forth. 

The hypocrites who are in the Church do not 
defile the true members so long as these are not 
of their spirit and activities. They are like the 



84 CHRISTIANITY, THE WORLD-RELIGION. 

unclean animals in the same ark with the clean, 
or the goats in the same pasture with the sheep, 
or chaff in the same barn with the grain, or ves- 
sels of dishonor in the same house with vessels of 
honor; they are to be endured for a while, for 
in the end the good shall be separated from the 
evil forever. The imperfections and sins of 
Christian nations are quite as evident to us as to 
others. We deplore them, and fight against 
them. I have seen a great Christian audience 
loudly applauding a Japanese Buddhist elo- 
quently declaiming against the injustice prac- 
ticed upon his people by so-called Christian 
Governments. 

Not forgetful of all these cautions and limita- 
tions let us now inquire if the actual historic 
results of Christianity have not been such as to 
strengthen faith in its ultimate universal preva- 
lence. We shall expect, from our knowledge of 
the destructive forces of sin, that the Gospel 
would encounter deadliest opposition, and that, 
where sin could not destroy, it would degrade it. 
Therefore, a knowledge of the corruptions of 
Christianity does not undermine our faith. 

Beginning as a hated superstition, despised by 
the leaders of the most hated and despised of 
ancient races, loathed by the philosophic Greek, 
and offensive to the haughty and martial Roman, 
we are not amazed that the first disciples of 
Christianity, entering with their Gospel of love 
into a world without love, were ruthlessly as- 



EFFECTS OF CHRISTIANITY. 85 

sailed, and that, as their conquests spread, the 
persecution became more destructive. 

Yet, in spite of its Jewish origin; in spite of its 
exclusiveness, for it demanded then, as it de- 
mands now, the surrender of every other system 
as a means of salvation ; in spite of its relentless 
antagonism to idolatry, impurity, injustice, — we 
find the religion of Jesus, blessed with the grate- 
ful eulogies of many of its pagan enemies, rising 
victorious out of the gloomy catacombs and the 
blood-stained sands of the amphitheater to final 
victory over the greatest embodiment of human 
power, wickedness and enmity which the Church 
ever encountered, the Empire of Rome. 6 We 
find it at last victorious in school and temple, in 
court and camp and home. It strengthens faith 
in the divine possibilities of man to read the 
story of the Christian conflict with Roman 
paganism, and to remember that neither the per- 
secutions under Nero and Marcus Aurelius and 
Diocletian, neither the hostile legislation of Tro- 
jan, nor all that slander and hate could achieve, 
was able to withstand the majestic, though 
agonizing, progress of the Church. Armed only 
with spiritual weapons, and baring her breast 
to the spear of the destroyer, she witnessed for 
Christ her King. "Those were times of awful 
agony," writes the historian, "the two years of 
Decius, the ten years of Diocletian, when the 
powerful Roman Empire, shutting the gates of 

6 Appendix, Lecture II, Note 6. 



86 CHRISTIANITY, THE WORLD-RELIGION. 

the amphitheater leaped into the arena face to 
face with the Christian Church. When those 
gates were opened, the victorious Church went 
forth with the baptism of blood on her saintly 
brow, bearing a new Christian empire in her fair 
white arms." 

Nothing more loftily inspiring can be read 
than the story of the Christian victory which 
issued from the Church's meager beginning. No 
wonder Roman historians overlooked that be- 
ginning; no wonder that Tacitus and Suetonius 
took no account of anything so insignificant as the 
origin of the tiny society which the despised 
prophet of Galilee gathered about Him. Nothing 
formidable to Roman supremacy appeared pos- 
sible in the earliest stages of Christian history. 
"At first sight," as Renan has said, "the work 
of Jesus did not seem likely to survive; the con- 
gregation seemed to have nothing before it but 
to dissolve into anarchy." But the seed of the 
world-wide kingdom of God was securely lodged 
in a few lowly but exultant hearts. They knew 
themselves to be possessed by a spirit, to be the 
guardians and witnesses of a truth, to be the 
representatives of a life, which the dying empire 
needed. The disciples felt the stream of divine 
energy which issued from their Lord's new 
opened grave. They were touched by the spir- 
itual hands of celestial powers ; they went forth 
in their weakness perpetual victors, even in 
martyrdom. When Jesus told His first fol- 



EFFECTS OF CHRISTIANITY. 87 

lowers of the least of all seeds which sowed in a 
field became a lodging place for the birds of the 
air, He described the outward expansion of His 
-kingdom; its growth from land to land, the 
writings of its sacred books in the tongues not 
only of priestly Jerusalem and scholarly Athens 
and militant Rome, but also in the speech of 
Teuton and Celt, of Arab and Malay, of Mon- 
golian and western savage tribes, and above all 
in the tongue of the world-colonizing Saxon. 
And in His parable He gave them a prophetic 
suggestion of the missionary conquests which 
passed out of the gates of the Holy City, by the 
ancient well of Samaria and the shell-spangled 
shores of Genesareth, eastward to flowery Damas- 
cus, westward to the coasts of Cyprus, to the 
harbor of opulent Corinth, still westward to Italy 
and Spain, and northward through German for- 
ests, across channels and stormy expanses, till 
they touched the utmost isles of the Hebrides, 
uplifting and transfiguring and humanizing the 
life that it reached, until, after long centuries, we 
see Columbus carrying in his great heart the 
embryo future of a new Christian world, Colum- 
bus, the heroic pulse of all mankind beating in 
his soul, planting the Cross-banner in "far-off At- 
lantic Seas," upon islands of which the Apostles 
had never dreamed, and opening to the bene- 
ficent results of the Gospel the vast continents 
which even now house and nurture a large por- 
tion of that race for whom Jesus lived and died. 



88 CHRISTIANITT, THE WORLD-RELIGION. 

But Christianity has been the leaven as well as 
the seed. Its work has not been merely expan- 
sive, the enlargement of its dominion from age 
to age, it has been also intensive and spiritual. 
It has been fruitful with divine activities, invisi- 
ble like all the greatest things, and carrying on 
unseen transfigurations. It has been noiseless 
like light, energetic like life, spiritually trans- 
forming like love, a blessed and impalpable con- 
tagion spreading from heart to heart, as well as 
a celestial kingdom extending from land to land. 7 

The Christian victory over Greek and Roman 
heathenism (as I have already intimated), was 
never complete, and Christianity soon met an- 
other foe to be changed into a friend, the energy 
of Northern barbarism. The Roman poets and 
profligates 

" Shrank with a shudder from the blue-eyed race, 
Whose force rough-handed should renew the world, 
And from the dregs of Romulus express 
Such wine as Dante poured." 

That race swept down on the Empire; the 
Christian preacher and the German savage came 
face to face, and it may be said that for ten 
centuries, and more, the Church of Christ was 
fearfully involved with the corruptions of Rome, 
and in strenuous conflict with the ferocities of a 
half-tamed barbarism prevailing throughout what 
are to-day the leading nations of Europe. The 
Church, itself only partly Christian, attempted to 

7 Appendix, Lecture II, Note 7. 



EFFECTS OF CHRISTIANITY. 89 

absorb the Roman, and to dominate the Gothic 
world. From the empire the bishop caught its 
cherished ambition for universal outward su- 
premacy. The despotism of the Papacy and its 
bondage to antiquated forms were legacies of the 
ancient imperialism. As we read the history of 
the Middle Ages, and remember that the Church 
was built on the ruins of the old and newer 
paganism, we feel that Christianity, as it lay in 
the heart of Jesus Christ, received a very imper- 
fect illustration. And yet its fruits were not 
wanting. Slavery was gradually destroyed ; 
womanhood was delivered in large measure from 
degradation and eastern seclusion ; learning flour- 
ished, at least among the few; and the seeds of 
it were kept for the new sowings and harvestings 
which were to come. Christianity, thus smoth- 
ered and perverted, had energy enough for its 
own regeneration. 

We never begin to understand the Christian 
religion until we perceive that its fundamental 
law is found in the seed to which Jesus com- 
pared it. This is the law of life, of progress, of 
development and, if you please, I will add with 
Rothe, the law of mutation. There is a sense 
in which Christianity is the most changeable, be- 
cause the most progressive of all faiths. Christ, 
it is true, left much that was unfinished, and the 
imperfect beginnings of Christian history have 
been contrasted with the complete, though sim- 
ple system of Mohammed. But, it seems to me, 



90 CHRISTIANITY, THE WORLD-RELIGION. 

that the simplicity and completeness of Islam 
may be and are its imperfection. It can do all 
that lies in its power in a brief time; it has no 
infinite perspectives, no prolonged evolutions, no 
prodigious and increasingly fruitful developments. 

Christianity is the richest of religions, the 
nursing mother of all the higher forms of moral 
and spiritual life. Whatever darkness may 
gather over Christendom, whatever winter may 
set in, the sun again rises, the spring time again 
flourishes, great leaders inspired by the truths of 
the old Gospel go back to the original precepts 
of the Nazarene Prophet, and come into contact 
with His liberating life. Thus rose the six- 
teenth century Reformation. The Church which 
had held the torch of knowledge above the flood 
of mediaeval barbarism, and saved the records of 
Biblical and classical literature to be the seeds of 
modern refinement and humanity, was itself 
renewed. Free thought, the right to investi- 
gate truth, individual inquiry, deliverance from 
priestly domination, and all the marvels of 
modern science have been the legitimate out- 
growths of that great reforming era, which 
brought a multitude of men not only back to 
the simple divine truths of the Christian Gospel, 
but into living connection once more with the 
ever-living Lord. 

We gain our truest insight into Christianity 
when we think of its fundamental law as the law 
of life. We are told that the keynote of Bud- 



EFFECTS OF CHRISTIANITY. 9 1 

dhism is the teaching that beyond and above 
every virtue is the emotionless frame of mind, 
which neither sorrows nor rejoices, which neither 
hates nor loves. " There is no hope of personal 
immortality for the individual." He is to be 
swallowed up at last. " Reward as well as pun- 
ishment must terminate," it has been said. "But 
so long as men do good they deserve reward, as 
they deserve punishment so long as they do 
evil." According to Buddhism works of all 
kinds must be got rid of, man's highest stage is 
in a state of contemplative abstraction in which 
nothing is done. But Christianity, undertaking 
the most tremendous tasks for man and for so- 
ciety, and eclipsing all other faiths in its confi- 
dent claims, is pre-eminently a religion of 
abounding life and divine energy. As an 
American scholar, long resident in Japan, has 
vividly said, "Buddhism, brought face to face 
with the problem of the world's evil and possi- 
ble improvement, evades it ; begs the whole ques- 
tion at the outset; prays 'Deliver us from 
existence, save us from life, and give us as little 
of it as possible.' Christianity faces the prob- 
lem and flinches not; orders advance all along 
the line of endeavor, and prays 'Deliver us 
from evil;' and is ever of good cheer because its 
Captain and Leader says, 'I have overcome the 
world ; go win it for me ! I have come that they 
might have life, and that they might have it 
more abundantly.' " 



92 CHRISTIANITY, THE WORLD-RELIGION. 

The problem with Buddhism, as has often 
been pointed out, is simply "How to commit 
suicide, not of that pitiful and elusive kind, 
which rids man of life in one particular form, 
but which rids him of existence in every form." 
Christianity looks upon life as good, and aims to 
put into it, and get out of it, the greatest possi- 
ble good ; hence its law of progress and hope ; 
hence its purpose to make each new age nobler 
than the last ; each new life better than the 
preceding life, every great moral result a proph- 
ecy of something diviner. Christendom is borne 
along, like a great craft on an oceanic stream, 
and wherever Christendom is most vital with 
truth and love, the swifter is the advance. 8 

Men forget the origin and moulding force of 
progress when they talk complacently about the 
"nineteenth century," and bid us look at 
"modern civilization " as our great benefactor, 
and ask us to cease boasting of the fruits of 
Christianity. But go to central China where the 
Gospel has not penetrated. There is no nine- 
teenth century there. There men are still living 
in the fifth century before Christ. Where is 
the nineteenth century with the tribes that 
swarm and suffer beneath the burning sun of 
Africa, or among the people of the Grand Lama 
on the tableland of Thibet? The areas where 
Christian influences prevail in Asiatic lands have 
seemed to me oases in the midst of deserts; cen- 

8 Appendix, Lecture II, Note 8. 



EFFECTS OF CHRISTIANITY. 93 

ters of brilliant radiance in the midst of moral 
darkness. Talk about the progress of freedom ! 
The line of its progress follows straight down 
from Him who taught the brotherhood of man 
and the Fatherhood of God; His words rang the 
death-knell of slavery in the Roman Empire. 
Like the seeds in the Colosseum, and the vege- 
tation sprouting between the bricks in the palace 
of the Caesars, gradually disturbing or upturning 
the old foundations, the seed which Jesus scat- 
tered has upturned and destroyed many of the 
debasing tyrannies of the past. Feudalism is 
gone; serfdom is gone; the Bible has been an 
emancipator; its seeds, in the minds of Wycliff 
and Huss, of Luther and the German Reform- 
ers, in the souls of Scotch and English Puritans, 
were wafted from the trees under which Jesus 
taught on the slopes of Olivet. A chapter in 
the triumphs of Christianity will tell how the 
growth of free institutions is directly traceable 
from the great Genevese theologian, John Cal- 
vin, down to the moral leaders of the present 
century; it can be shown that the chief heroes 
of emancipation, and the most influential of 
anti-slavery reformers were men who, "bound 
the Bible to their brows." To-day, thanks to 
the Christian spirit, slavery is dead, or dying, 
the world over. The movement which gave 
freedom and self-government to civilized nations 
was sure in the end to reach the lowest of our 
race. "Christianity promotes movement, ex- 



94 CHRISTIANITY, THE WORLD-RELIGION. 

pansion, growth. Compare Egypt, Turkey and 
Persia with Germany, England and the United 
States." Christianity prepares men even 
through despotism for liberty, through tempor- 
ary restraint for freedom and progress. Its 
spirit is so vital and emancipating that when even 
a small portion of Christian truth is bound up in 
a tyrannical government, secular or ecclesiastical, 
that government is doomed. On account of its 
reforming energy Christian civilization rectifies 
its mistakes. The expansion of Christendom has 
been attended with oppression and rapacity, with 
the plunder of the innocent, and the disregard of 
many human rights, but it is the glory of Chris- 
tianity that regenerating force is lodged within 
it. These crimes have been brought to the bar 
of Christendom, and have been condemned by 
it. Their repetition has been made impossible. 
And this explains why the peasant of Bengal or 
Mysore now enjoys the same rights of justice and 
good government as are claimed by Englishmen. 
A religion like Buddhism where the law of life 
and progress is feeble, seems speedily to reach 
its limit of renewing power. Sir Monier-Williams 
recounts a long list of benefits to Asia which 
Buddhism for several centuries rendered; the 
introduction of education, the encouragement of 
arts, the deprecation of war, the proclamation of 
good-will, sympathy with social liberty, the 
granting of some independence to women, the 
inculcation of generosity and tolerance, the for- 



EFFECTS OF CHRISTIANITY. 95 

bidding of avarice, the advocacy of compassion, 
the promotion of progress to a certain stage. 
This is a brilliant showing; but, on the other 
hand, Buddhism does not seem to have per- 
manently elevated the lower forms of civilization 
which have adopted it. It has not given expan- 
sion to the human soul, it has not continually 
impelled man onward in the track of general 
civilization and progress. Can the purest and 
best results be expected of a system which makes 
"celibacy the loftiest state, and mendicancy the 
highest idea of life?" 

Greater things should be anticipated from a 
religion like the Christian, whose Founder fills 
his followers with much of His own hopeful 
vigor. While He laid His hand in blessing on 
every passive grace, He expanded the human 
soul with the inspiration to illustrate all the 
active virtues of a perfect manhood. 

Christianity, when not perverted by pessim- 
ism, points its followers to an unspeakably bet- 
ter earth, "with joy and love triumphing and 
fair truth." I believe that one of the most 
marked contrasts between the civilization on 
which Christ has put his stamp, and the civilization 
of Greece and Rome, which Christianity displaced, 
or the civilization of much of the Orient to-day, 
is the hope and energy which rule in the one, 
and the hopelessness and sloth which seem to 
pervade the others. 

Now that men are beginning to see the might 



96 CHRISTIANITT, THE WORLD-RELIGION. 

and majesty and sure-coming victory of the 
Kingdom of Heaven, it becomes more difficult 
for Christian believers to sink into the slough of 
pessimism. 

We study Christianity intelligently, only when 
we see it claiming the whole of humanity, and 
the whole of man as the field of its redeeming 
activities, planning the redemption of the indi- 
vidual and the uplifting of society. For the 
individual, it emphasizes neither the inner nor 
the outer life, in such wise as to leave human 
nature ill-balanced. It would develop simultane- 
ously all the various forces of the human spirit, 
and not minister to thought at the expense of 
emotion, nor to meditation at the expense of 
active energy. It is not surprising that all the 
great music of the world is the outcome of 
Christianity. It is not surprising that every 
department of mental and spiritual greatness and 
excellence has been illustrated in Christian civili- 
zation. In these recent centuries the Christian 
religion, which has been concerned chiefly with 
the individual spirit, is directing its energies as 
well to the social progress of mankind. It is 
adding new stars to its crown of triumph in new 
emancipations, mitigating the horrors of war, 
and diffusing beyond its own boundaries the 
growing spirit of humanity and brotherhood. I 
regard the social discontent found in nations to- 
day as very largely the spirit of Jesus Christ, 
demanding that His law of love be still further 



EFFECTS OF CHRISTIANITT. 97 

pervasive in human affairs. And, if we go out- 
side the domain of Christendom, we find the 
Gospel is modifying the ideas and usages of 
non-Christian peoples through the world-wide 
missionary movements of our time. Commerce 
is a penetrating force and a unifying power, and 
the Christian's Bible goes with the English and 
American ship to every shore. A chapter not 
yet written would indicate what these prepara- 
tory movements have wrought in Asia, not only 
where the crescent rules ; not only where Mo- 
hammedans have been led by the force of 
Christian example to educate their daughters, 
and by the pressure of Christian Governments to 
take some initial steps toward reform ; not only 
in Japan, who wins her victories clad in the edu- 
cational and military panoply of Christian na- 
tions; but also here where reforming sect after 
sect has risen, and where Hinduism seems now 
to claim as its own the spirit and truth which we 
believe have come from Bible lands and Biblical 
civilization. Christianity has been a leaven enter- 
ing into the life of nations ; it has greatly affected 
the political relationships of men ; it has com- 
pelled governments to be less despotic and more 
humane; it has reversed the maxims of ancient 
society, and made men, not the appendages and 
slaves of the state, but the rightful recipients of 
whatever services governments might render; it 
has modified the relations which whole peoples 
sustain to one another. However belligerent 



9§ CHRISTIANITY, THE WORLD-RELIGION. 

the nations may seem to-day, the chronic and 
continuing wars of ancient pagan societies have 
given way to an attitude more humane and 
peaceful. Two and a half centuries ago the 
Dutch juris-consult, Hugo Grotius, the Christian 
theologian whom Henry of Navarre called the 
" Miracle of Holland," published his book on the 
law of war and peace, which roused Europe to 
some faint sense of international obligation. 
Governments began to see that treachery and 
battle and conquest do not exhaust the relations 
which they might rightly bear to one another. 
The light which touched the mind of Grotius 
reached other minds. A body of international 
law has come into being, and in recent years the 
conviction has grown that arbitration should take 
the place of the iron-clad and the dynamite-gun, 
in settling international disputes; and within a 
few years our American Capital has witnessed 
the gathering of men representing seventeen 
nationalities of the New World from Behring Sea 
to the Straits of Magellan, met to confer in the 
interests of international peace, and themselves 
the heralds of that coming congress, which shall 
be "the Federation of the World." 

And a distinctive feature of Christian civiliza- 
tion is this, that more and more it brings its 
highest blessings to every class of men, and does 
not reserve its choicest favors, like the Republic 
of Plato, for a limited oligarchy, dominant over 
a nation of slaves. The spirit of caste is to it 



EFFECTS OF CHRISTIANITT. 99 

supremely abhorrent, even more so than it would 
have been to the early sacred poets who wrote 
the Vedas. Christianity gave the transforming 
of the Roman World into the hands of a com- 
pany of Jewish fishermen, men of common 
mould, and it changed them into the princes of 
God. Paul speaks of things that are despised, 
bringing to naught the pride of man. It has 
been said of Celsus, the earliest literary assailant 
of the Christian faith, that he was "a very wise 
man, a physician, and philosopher, the true 
child of culture, proud of the manners, the 
speech, the daintiness and delicacy of the culti- 
vated." We hear him say, "See what a set of 
men these Christians are ! The teachers of our 
noble philosophies in our academies are culti- 
vated gentlemen, acquainted with the best 
thoughts of the best thinkers, and able to give 
them fit, because elegant, expression ; but these 
Christian preachers, why they are fishermen, and 
publicans, and weavers, and cobblers, ignorant 
Jews, illiterate Greeks, the veriest barbarians, 
enthusiasts, without the gift of refined thought 
or cultured speech." We behold some remnants 
of Celsus in the feelings which dainty culture 
expresses toward the earnest Christian evangel- 
ism of our day. But what of these criticisms? 
Let us take Celsus at his word, accepting his 
testimony as true, and what then? "Does he 
not become," as Dr. Fairbairn writes, "one of 
the oldest, though most unconscious, witnesses 



IOO CHRISTIANITY, THE WORLD-RELIGION. 

to the power of Christ? It was a new thing in 
the history and experience of men, that men, 
such as Celsus described, should become grander 
and mightier than any known to his academies, 
possessed of ideas as to God, as to man and so- 
ciety and the state, sublimer than Plato ever im- 
agined, men wiser in their notions of civil rights 
and political duties than Solon, dreaming of 
more splendid achievements than ever dawned 
on the soul of Alexander or of Caesar, working 
at the foundations of a city infinitely nobler in 
ideal, as it was to be incomparably grander in 
history, than the city Athene loved and shielded, 
or the city Romulus founded, and Jove guided 
to universal empire." 

Open the pages of the Roman historians, and 
you will find there pictures of the Roman 
nobility, looking upon their slaves as so many 
cattle, murdering them with impunity, using 
their bodies to fatten the lampreys in their lakes, 
pitting them against tigers in the amphitheater. 
Open the pages of the early Christian historians, 
and you will see the Roman nobility and their 
slaves sitting down as brethren at the Lord's 
table. It was the doctrine of Jesus, concerning 
the equal humanity of all men, which reversed 
the maxims of philosophy, and gave the litera- 
ture of heaven to men whom Plato excluded 
from his "Academy" and condemned in his 
"Republic " to menialness and brutality. And 
what an immense and glorious revolution the 



EFFECTS OF CHRISTIANITY. ioi 

Christian doctrine has effected in the thought 
and literature of the world! It is not rank or 
place or princely wealth that gives dignity and 
grace to the characters whom the masters of our 
imaginative art unveil to us. The verse of 
Robert Burns has made an entrance for all the 
world beneath the low roof of the Scottish peas- 
ant, and the family worship of the ''Cotter's 
Saturday Night " may bring us as near to God 
as a gorgeous service intoned within cathedral 
walls. The spiritual influence and consolation 
which Christianity has brought to the poor are 
not greater than the ennoblement it brings to 
our conceptions of man, in lifting us above bond- 
age to the formal and external. The soul is 
sovereign over rank and dress, and the highest 
art of a Christian age finds passion and suffering, 
love and joy, as significant and sublime among 
the miners of Cornwall and the huts of Ireland 
as in the drawing-rooms of London; amid the 
slave cabins of Louisiana as along the brilliant 
boulevards of Paris; in Millet's portraiture of 
the Norman peasantry as in Paul Veronese's 
gorgeous pictures of Venetian splendor. 

There have been no tribes so distant and so 
debased that the touch of Christ's hand has not 
reached them and lifted them into manhood. 
The impossible in the case of the brutal Hotten- 
tot and the native Australian has been realized. 
It is not a Christian missionary, but Charles Dar- 
win, the greatest name in science since Sir Isaac 



102 CHRISTIANITT, THE WORLD-RELIGION. 

Newton, it is Darwin, himself a contributor to 
Christian missions, who wrote of the Tahitians, 
that human sacrifices, unparalleled profligacy, 
infanticide and bloody wars have been abolished, 
and that dishonesty, intemperance and licentious- 
ness have been greatly reduced by the introduc- 
tion of Christianity. I might tell the story of 
special triumphs, like that in Madagascar, where 
the Bible has been enthroned, moral abomina- 
tions largely uprooted, education diffused, and a 
hundred thousand souls gathered into Christian 
churches. I might ask you to look to far off 
Melanesia, with Fiji as its center, and note the 
fact that out of a population of a hundred and 
twenty thousand, not long since cannibals, a 
hundred thousand have been reached, and are 
now worshipers in Christian assemblies; or I 
might tell you how the power of the ever-living 
Gospel in the heart of Robert Moffatt gave to 
the degraded Bechuana tribes trade, literature 
and civilization. Or, I might sketch the move- 
ment in Mussulman lands, which has touched 
with the radiance of the Cross the Lebanon and 
Persian mountains, as well as the waters of the 
Bosporus, and which is the sure harbinger of 
the day when Cairo and Damascus and Teheran 
shall be the servants of Jesus, and when even 
the solitudes of Arabia shall be pierced, and 
Christ, in the person of His disciples, shall enter 
the Kaaba of Mecca, and the whole truth shall 
at last be there spoken, "This is eternal life that 



EFFECTS OF CHRISTIAXITF. 103 

they might know Thee, the only true God, and 
Jesus Christ whom Thou hast sent." 

It is not my purpose to deny or to belittle 
the beneficent results of the other faiths. But 
while determined t£> see the good, how great is 
the good which can be discovered? ''Buddhism 
has made Asia mild," we are told, but it is not 
the general impression that where it prevails it 
has made Asia moral. " While Buddhism," as 
a recent writer has said, "made Chinese Asia 
gentle in manners and kind to animals, it cov- 
ered the land with temples, monasteries and im- 
ages; on the other hand the religion of Jesus 
filled Europe not only with churches and abbeys, 
monasteries and nunneries, but also with hos- 
pitals, orphan asylums, lighthouses, schools and 
colleges." Furthermore, while India has been 
an immense theater for the activity and con- 
tention of all the religions which are really great, 
while it has been the museum and the encyclo- 
paedia, and the reservoir, of these faiths, 9 would 
it be difficult to establish a claim, which is often 
made that Christianity, directly and indirectly, 
"has done more for the elevation in certain re- 
spects of Hindu society in the last eighty years 
than the other religions have accomplished in all 
the ages of their dominion?" 10 Much may be 
said in praise of Confucianism, but it has not 
been progressive, it has not been in a high sense 

9 Appendix, Lecture II, Note 9. 

10 Appendix, Lecture II, Note 10. 



104 CHRISTIANITY, THE WORLD-RELIGION. 

religious, and it has sacrificed man to the social 
order. And nothing more is needed to show 
that Mohammedanism is only a temporary halt- 
ing-place in human progress, than the engrafting 
of polygamy into its fundamental ideas and per- 
manent system. A Scotch theologian has well 
said, "that polygamy may suit a race in a certain 
stage of its development, and may in that stage, 
lead to purer living and surer moral growth than 
its prohibition, may be granted. But, neces- 
sarily, a religion which incorporates in its code 
of morals any such allowances, stamps itself as 
something short of the final religion." 11 Pro- 
fessor Max Miiller, the most famous of all the 
students on these themes, has said that, "how- 
ever highly we prize our Christianity we never 
prize it highly enough until we have compared 
it with the religions of the rest of the world." 

Men realize that in the stress and interchange 
of modern civilization the best religion must 
come to the front. It is the mission of Chris- 
tianity to draw nations out of their seclusion, to 
generate eager inquiry throughout all the world. 
The non-Christian faiths are not permitted to 
remain at ease, and the ultimate result of the 
agitation seems to me not in the least uncertain. 

Our survey makes it clear that if we should 
take away from modern civilization the intel- 
lectual, the moral, the spiritual, and the social 
effects which have come, directly and indirectly, 

"Appendix, Lecture II, Note n. 



EFFECTS OF CHRISTIANITY. 1 05 

from the spirit and teaching of Jesus Christ, 



there would be little left to distinguish us from 
that vast ocean of cruelty, superstition, and despair 
in which went down the sun of Rome. Take 
out of modern life the forces which make for 
liberty and order, for enlightenment, progress 
and brotherhood, which owe their origin to the 
spiritual dynamics of the Christian Gospel, and 
the area of moral darkness would be vastly 
widened, the domain of spiritual hope and splen- 
dor would be so shrunken and obscured that men 
everywhere would be dreaming of a fabulous 
golden past instead of toiling for an actualized 
golden future. Marred and blackened though 
our civilization is, the law of progress, the law 
of life, the law of hope run their golden threads 
through its entire organism. We are not mov- 
ing in fatal cycles round and round, coming back 
to the same place, and making no true advance. 
An increasing purpose runs through the Christian 
ages. And, in spite of a backward turning now 
and then, the stream rolls forward its fertilizing 
flood, with such force that obstacles do not pre- 
vail against it. Indeed the energy of this ad- 
vancing life argues the supernatural origin which 
the church has always claimed for Christianity. 
It may well be believed that if the head-sources 
of the River of Salvation were found in some 
foot-hills which have but a slight elevation above 
the plain, if our Religion had its origin in one 
who ranks in being, only with the founders of 



106 CHRISTIANITT, THE WORLD-RELIGION. 

other faiths, there would not be force enough to 
push the stream of redemption with such vigor 
and volume over the long, wide, desert wastes of 
human history. May we not believe that be- 
cause the Fountain Head of the Gospel is high 
up among the eternal hills of God, because the 
stream issues from beneath the cross and tomb 
of a divine Saviour, nothing has been able in 
nineteen centuries of strenuous antagonism to 
withstand its progress or, at least, permanently, 
to push it aside? I would that Christendom 
were better, but compared with the non-Chris- 
tian world it appears to me as noon-day to dark- 
ness, and before my observations of Oriental life 
I never realized so keenly the truth of Tenny- 
son's line: 
"Better fifty years of Europe than a cycle of Cathay." 

The development of Eastern civilization has 
continued through more centuries than there are 
decades in my own country. If this long de- 
velopment has produced results far inferior to 
those of our brief American history, India should 
seriously ask the reason why. 12 And if the fruits 
of Christianity have not been worthy of its 
Founder, and commensurate with its opportuni- 
ties, still they have been so wondrous and world- 
wide that, to some minds, they furnish a more 
persuasive argument than the most skillful apolo- 
getic. We feel that Christendom, on the whole, 
demands a favorable judgment for the Christian 

12 Appendix, Lecture II, Note 12. 



EFFECTS OF CHRISTIANITY. 107 

faith. We feel, with St. Hilaire, that "to con- 
demn Christianity, one must fail to comprehend 
it." Seen in its true spirit, apprehended as the 
fulfillment of all the best thoughts and aspira- 
tions of what Schelling has called the "wild- 
growing religions," grasped in its central Power 
and Person, we believe that Christianity will yet 
appear to the disciples of Buddha, Confucius and 
Mohammed, and to the worshipers of Krishna, 
in its peerless supremacy and distinctive char- 
acter, and that they will be ready to exclaim, 
with the greatest of Christian Apostles, "When 
that which is perfect is come, then that which is 
in part shall be done away. 



CHRISTIAN THEISM, AS THE BASIS 
OF A UNIVERSAL RELIGION. 



Our Father which art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. — 
Matthew vi: 9. 

Is God the God of Jews only ? Is He not the God of the 
nations also ? Yea, of the nations also. — Romans iii: 29. 

Grade der Pantheismus kann dem unbedingten Werthe 
der sittlichen Arbeit niemals gerecht werden. Die Wissen- 
schaft aber muss in dem Streite zwischen Pantheismus und 
Theismum ihre vollstandige Incompetenz zugestehen. — 
Christliche Apologetik von Dr. Herm. Schultz, p. 18. 

The water of stagnant Buddhism is still a swarming mass, 
which needs cleansing to purity by a knowledge of one God 
who is Light and Love. Without such knowledge, the 
manifold changes in Buddhism will but form fresh chap- 
ters of degradation and decay. — The Religions of Japan, 
Griffis, p. 223. 

Theology has no falser idea than that of the impassability 
of God. If He is capable of sorrow, He is capable of suf- 
fering; and were he without the capacity for either, He 
would be without any feeling of the evil of sin or the 
misery of man. The very truth that came by Jesus Christ 
may be said to be summed up in the passability of God. — 
The Place of God in Modern Theology, Fairbairn, p. 483. 

No ! such a God my worship may not win, 
Who lets the world about his finger spin, 
A thing extern ; my God must rule within, 
And whom I own for Father, God, Creator, 
Hold nature in himself, himself in nature; 
And in his kindly arms embraced, the whole 
Doth live and move by his pervading soul. 

— Goethe. 



THIRD LECTURE. 

CHRISTIAN THEISM, AS THE BASIS OF A 
UNIVERSAL RELIGION. 

I have often looked, with profound emotion, 
in one of the parks of my own city, on St. Gau- 
dens's famous statue of Lincoln, whose uncon- 
genial task it was to employ the national power 
against his own countrymen; he stands there be- 
fore us, "with malice toward none, with charity 
for all " beaming from his sad and thoughtful 
face; and I have felt that there is in the man 
thus embodied something diviner than the power 
symbolized by the folded fasces behind him, 
something greater than the wise logic with which 
he is about to speak. There is a majestic ten- 
derness, which left out of its comprehensive be- 
nevolence no one of his people, down to the 
assassin that slew him and to the slave that saw 
in him an earthly saviour. But in the temple 
of God's Word, according to devout Christian 
faith, another and greater statue is unveiled for 
the glad eyes of all mankind. The living em- 
bodiment of God's forgiving and long-suffering 
mercy is there disclosed. Divine love has been 
revealed and crowned; not its physical embodi- 
ment, as by the Trojan prince on Mount Ida of 



112 CHRISTIANITT, THE WORLD-RELIGION. 

old, not the heavenly maiden of the mystic's 
vision, bending above the bars of Paradise; but 
love's divinest self. We behold her transcend- 
ent beauty, with which not for a moment is to 
be compared the earthly loveliness of the Grecian 
Helen, 

" The face that launched a thousand ships 
And burned the topless towers of Ilium." 

We see in her a love that agonizes to bless 
even through suffering. Words of forgiveness 
seem breaking from her lips; her eyes are founts 
of compassion, and though at her feet rest the 
thunderbolts of omnipotence, and her brow is 
radiant with the awful diadem of celestial holi- 
ness, we see the ringers of her hand whitening 
around the Cross, and we bow before her as the 
emancipator and redeemer of the soul and the 
queenly sovereign of all mankind. The victories 
of Christianity have been the triumphs of the 
Cross — the conquests of the God of Redemption. 
The proposition which I offer to-day is this: 
that the Christian theism thus hinted at, the 
doctrine of God contained in the Scriptures, is 
an adequate basis for a Universal Religion. The 
God who is the Universal Father is a boon to all 
the world. The God who is one mind, of abso- 
lute perfection, is a blessing to peoples still dis- 
tracted and degraded by polytheism. The God 
who is personal and holy needs to be known by 
those still shrouded in the mists of pantheism. 
The God who is merciful as well as mighty, and 



CHRISTIAN THEISM. 113 

whose mercy has been revealed and personalized 
in the redeeming Christ, has a mission of un- 
speakable good to all who, consciously or uncon- 
sciously, are sunk in guilt, error and degrada- 
tion. The God who became incarnate that men 
might at last know His nature, and gain spiritual 
restoration, release and harmony, is the fulfill- 
ment of the prayers and hopes and vague long- 
ings of a hundred peoples and a hundred genera- 
tions of men. 

I have thus far argued the Universalism of 
Christianity from its present aspects, as the only 
religion flourishing among all races and nations; 
and from its beneficent and world-wide effects. 
Our theme to-day requires that we should look 
into the varied and fragmentary conceptions of 
God which have prevailed in other faiths as find- 
ing, so far as they are true, a perfect fulfillment 
in Christian theism. It requires, especially, that 
we should clearly understand what are the dis- 
tinctive, or, at least, the supreme elements in the 
Christian revelation of God, as now taught by 
the instructed minds of Christendom. The light 
which will thus be thrown on our fundamental 
proposition that Christianity alone is the world- 
religion will not, I earnestly believe, be found 
feeble and flickering. It is interesting to note 
that already, in the non-Christian faiths, among 
enlightened spirits, there is an eager disposition 
to claim the Christian doctrine of the divine 
Fatherhood. The newest Hinduism, traversing 



114 CHRISTIANITT, THE WORLD-RELIGION. 

two millenniums of polytheism, recalls the early- 
Aryan Dyaush-Pitar — the Sanskrit Heavenly 
Father, corresponding with Zeus Pater and 
Jupiter — and erects into living form this primeval 
foreshadowing of Christ's Pater-noster. We all 
remember that the Congress of the World's 
Faiths asserted "with a most marked conviction 
and reiteration the Fatherhood of God, the 
brotherhood of man, and the solidarity of the 
race." As one participant has said, "It united 
often in the Lord's prayer, and by implication 
committed itself to the universal religion which 
that universal prayer expresses." As another 
participant in that Parliament has written, "It 
intensified the conviction that our God is no 
geographical Deity, like the local gods of Egypt, 
the tribal gods of Greece, the pantheon gods of 
Rome, the national gods of Palestine, the eccle- 
siastical God of Christendom." And it requires 
no prophet to see that Divine Fatherhood, more 
or less clearly apprehended, will yet be pro- 
claimed as a tenet of all the historic faiths. You 
may recall the legend of the Christian and the Jew 
who once entered a Persian temple and saw there 
the sacred fire. You remember that the Jew in- 
quired of the Parsi priest, "Do you worship the 
fire?" "Not the fire," was the answer; "it is 
only an emblem of the sun." "But do you 
worship the sun?" "No; that is but the em- 
blem of the invisible light which preserves all 
things." Then the Persian inquired, "How do 



CHRISTIAN THEISM. 115 

you name the Supreme Being?" And the 
Israelite answered, "We call Him Jehovah 
Adonai, the Lord which was, and is, and shall 
be." "Your word is great and glorious," said 
the Persian, "but it is terrible." Then the 
Christian approached and said, "We call him 
Abba, Father." Whereupon the Jew and the 
Gentile eyed each other in surprise, and said, 
"Your word is nearest and highest, but who gave 
you the courage to call the Eternal thus?" 
"The Father Himself," was the answer; and 
then he explained to them the Gospel of Re- 
demption, and they believed and raised their 
eyes to Heaven and said, "Our Father," and 
joining hands called each other brethren. This 
legend became at the Congress of the Creeds 
historic fact. And the fact is surely prophetic, 
and must give every expounder and preacher of 
Scriptural theism a new feeling of the fitness of 
His Gospel to meet the deepest wants of the 
whole race. 

No Christian Apostle or Missionary, I think, 
ever went to a non-Christian people without the 
feeling that he had a knowledge of God purer, 
higher, completer than has ever been obtained or 
held with vigorous faith by the most famous of 
non-Christian saints and philosophers. Some 
scholars have held that the Stoic conceptions of 
God and duty, as taught by Seneca, were strik- 
ingly similar to those of the apostle Paul; but 
Bishop Lightfoot, who regarded the Academy of 



Il6 CHRISTIANITY, THE WORLD-RELIGION. 

Plato as a vestibule to the Church of Christ, has 
shown that the basis of the Stoic theology is a 
gross materialism, relieved sometimes by a vague 
mysticism, and thus does not come into the same 
theistic category with the Pauline teaching. 
When the Christian messenger goes to-day to 
Arabia or to China, to the islands of Japan or 
to the schools of India, he believes, with what 
seems to him the best of reasons, that he has a 
completer, higher and more potent disclosure of 
the supreme and infinite Spirit than has been 
recorded in any sacred book of the Orient. 

It appears to us that it is a terrible experience 
to live without faith in the one God. It stirs 
the most earnest missionary spirit to enter by 
sympathy into the consciousness of those multi- 
tudes in the great Eastern world who have not 
yet fully learned the monotheism of science or 
the monotheism of religion. A student of 
Asiatic thought has said: ''Faith in the unity 
of law is the foundation of all science, but the 
average Asiatic has not this thought or faith. 
Appalled at his own insignificance, amid the sub- 
lime mysteries and awful immensities of nature, 
the shadows of his own mind become to him real 
existences." 1 "Just so far as Christianity has 
accustomed the world to its radical doctrine of a 
changeless and omnipotent God, it has given to 
science an undecaying basis and impulse." 
Students of Japan have seen what a poisonous 

1 Appendix, Lecture III, Note I. 



CHRISTIAN THEISM. 117 

and corrupting element in Japanese life has been 
the rude pantheism which branches out into 
polytheism and idolatry. The scientific educa- 
tion which that wonderful people has welcomed 
has done much to ''remove the incubus, to re- 
place and refill the mind," but "for the cultured, 
whose minds waver and whose feet flounder, as 
well as for the unlearned and priest-ridden, there 
is no surer help and healing than that faith in 
the Heavenly Father which gives the unifying 
thought to him who looks through creation." 

Now Christianity, we believe, has a perfect 
theism with which to emancipate the bewildered 
intellect, and more than this it has a loving God 
with Whom to satisfy the restless and sin-bur- 
dened heart. Doubtless the doctrine of the 
divine unity is not the exclusive possession nor 
the original discovery of Christian teachers. 
Rude sorts of monotheism are discoverable in 
the ancient faiths of Japan and China. The 
testimony to the existence of a vague primeval 
monotheism, Egyptian, Vedic, Zoroastrian, 
Chinese, Mexican, is neither slight nor weak. 2 
There is certainly a very ancient Hellenic be- 
lief in the unknown God whom Paul unveiled at 
Athens, the God "whose foot-prints have been 
found on the shifting sands of remote history." 
The early poetry of Greece is not lacking in 
glimpses of a supreme spiritual Zeus "before the 
ideal had been degraded by the myth-making 

2 Appendix, Lecture III, Note 2. 



Il8 CHRISTIANITY, THE WORLD-RELIGION. 

fancy." In the Varuna of the Hindu hymns we 
have what has been termed the earliest picture 
of the unknown God. But, how different is the 
occasional, unstable monotheism which in later 
Hinduism becomes pantheistic and polytheistic 
from that proclaimed to Israel, "The Lord our 
God is one Lord." Christian theism, wherein 
the divine unity is warmed by an indwelling 
Fatherhood, is in vivid contrast with the cold 
and stern Deity of the Greek philosophers, too 
cold and stern to be the God of the multitudes, 
and lacking the highest ethical elements "even 
unselfish love and child-like purity." Zeus, the 
father of the Greek gods, is far from being the 
loving Father of all men. The philosopher Lotze 
deemed the God-consciousness of the classical 
world as a rivulet matched with a rushing river 
by the side of the God-consciousness of the He- 
brew; and when we reflect that Jesus purified 
and perfected even the best knowledge of God 
which came to the prophets, we recall the obser- 
vation of Pascal, that "Christianity is so divine 
that another divine religion was only its founda- 
tion." "The Old Testament knew God as the 
Father of a nation : Christ knew Him as the 
Father of the individual soul." 

Still we make a mistake to underrate that 
knowledge of the Divine Nature which the whole 
providential training of Israel was designed to 
give. The stirring and eventful history which is 
the background of the Old Testament revelation 



CHRISTIAN THEISM. 119 

was God's school for the chosen people, to lift 
them from the grossness of idolatrous worship 
into true conceptions of Himself and especially 
of His unity and spirituality. God meant some- 
thing great and wonderful, not only for Israel, 
but for universal humanity, when He called 
Abraham, and from him raised up a peculiar 
people; when He brought Israel out of idola- 
trous Egypt ; when He led them forty years 
through Arabian sands that they might forget 
the fascinations of Egyptian polytheism. He 
meant something by the decree that every male 
Jew should wear between his eyes, and bind upon 
his hand, and write upon the posts of his house 
and the gates of his city, the sublime declara- 
tion, "The Lord our God is one Lord." Deep 
down beneath the seven-fold ruins of Jerusalem 
lie to-day the foundations of that temple in 
which was no graven image or painted Deity 
such as Egypt and Athens adored, but in whose 
holiest sanctuary, void of light and empty of 
human contrivance, the High Priest communed 
with the one invisible Jehovah. Providence 
never took so much pains to teach any other 
lesson as that of the divine unity; the schooling 
lasted two thousand years, from the call of 
Abraham to the destruction of Jerusalem. When 
the house of Jacob deserted the God of Bethel, 
He brought down upon it the flails of Egypt and 
Babylon. From the Nile and the Euphrates 
He summoned His ministers of correction, and 



120 CHRIS TIAJVITT, THE WORLD-RELIGION. 

frightened eyes saw the vales about Jerusalem 
which had been polluted with heathen altars, 
bright with the scarlet shields of Assyrian horse- 
men. The Holy City was laid in heaps, and in 
long captivity Israel relearned the lesson which 
Abraham and Moses and David and Jeremiah 
had taught, which Jesus reaffirmed in Judea, 
and Paul reproclaimed in the commercial and 
intellectual capitals of Greece. 

All the natural attributes which belong to a 
true conception of the Deity have found in the 
Old Testament their grandest expression; and 
the higher elements of the divine nature, His 
righteousness and mercy, burn like a line of fire 
through the Hebrew Scriptures. And many of 
the highest conceptions of the supreme splendor 
of the Divine Personality and righteousness have 
grown up under the fervent teachings of law- 
giver and psalmist and prophet. The ancient 
Scriptures employed all earthly types and rela- 
tionships to actualize and illuminate our concep- 
tions of Him in whose mind all earthly phenom- 
ena lay as ideas before the world came into 
being. According to Biblical theism God is a 
person, and not Matthew Arnold's "stream of 
tendency." Doubtless personality in God does 
not denote being with the limitations of human 
personality, but for popular speech any other 
representation is excluded. "God cannot be 
thought of as a personality by the side of others, 
but as the personality embracing all other per- 



CHRISTIAN THEISM. 1 21 

sonalities in conscious freedom." And we do 
not spiritualize our conception of Him by think- 
ing of the God-head as a vague something 
diffused through the universe, reaching on 
through immensity, not altogether here nor alto- 
gether there, but pervading all things like a sub- 
tle ether. If this be true, then only an infinitesi- 
mal part of God can be in one place at a time. 
God is divided if partly here and partly a thou- 
sand miles away. But spirit cannot be divided. 
It is the Biblical representation that God is 
wholly present everywhere. God is immanent, 
in Nature, as well as transcendent, above Nature. 
To the Christian theist, as to the Hindu pan- 
theist, the world is transfused with God like a 
globe of crystal in which the light dwells. The 
universe, as one has said, "is a handful of dust 
which God enchants " — a thought which has in- 
spired all the greater poets. Martineau has 
written that "beneath the dome of this universe 
we cannot stand where the musings of the eter- 
nal mind do not murmur round us and the vis- 
ions of His loving thought appear." "Nature," 
as Emerson says, "is too thin a veil, for God is 
all the while breaking through." Human life 
and all life are too wonderful for us to keep 
out of them God, "the mysterious magic that 
possesses the world." Our modern studies have 
shown us the omnipresence of thought and 
adaptation in the universe, so that we look upon 
the earth as having apparently been made to be 



122 CHRISTIANITY, THE WORLD-RELIGION. 

a school-room, a work-shop, a home, a temple 
for man. We look upon the universe and find 
intelligent order everywhere apparent. We per- 
ceive that the idea of each created thing must have 
existed before the thing itself came into being, as 
it did in all probability through that process which 
we call evolution, a doctrine which, as Professor 
Drummond has well said, ' ' has not affected except 
to improve and confirm it, the old teaching that 
all things have been created on a plan." The 
presence of mind is manifest in the numberless 
adaptations everywhere discoverable, and the 
deeper we go in order to inspect the beginnings 
of life, the more startling are the disclosures of 
divine activity and intelligence. God is evi- 
dently directing the movement and development 
of the original cells out of which spring oaks, 
oxen, olive trees, the rose, the lion, the vulture, 
and all the marvels of organized existence, weav- 
ing the various tissues of this living tapestry. 
An everywhere-present God is essential to the 
carrying on of universal life, spanning the clouds 
with rainbows, painting a thousand landscapes 
on the wings of butterflies, marshaling the hosts 
of the suns, directing the infinite armies of the 
atoms. The universe is one blazing wheel 
within other blazing wheels, all rushing with in- 
conceivable rapidity and testifying by the omni- 
presence of motion to the omnipresence of 
that Mind that created and upholds all things, 
and without whose continued activity the very 



CHRISTIAN THEISM. 123 

thought of universal motion is inconceivable and 
inconceivably absurd. 

Modern Science, the handmaid and helper of 
Christian Theism, presents also to our attention 
the fact of the universality of law, the want of 
caprice in the motions of the universe, the un- 
deviating submission of all things to intelligent 
regulation, so that the winds do not blow with- 
out method nor the waves roll disobedient to 
the divine mathematics. But law is inconceiva- 
ble except as the working of a willing mind. 
Self-made or self-executed it is an absurdity, as 
much so as a proposition made to an organ that 
it should compose and render the Hallelujah 
Chorus or any other great piece of music; so 
that when we have extended the domain of law 
so as to embrace the rushing and shining host 
of the stars, and when we have found law every- 
where executed, we have only announced the 
omnipresence of Him who said to Jeremiah, 
"Am I a God at hand, and not a God afar off? 
Do I not fill heaven and earth?" 

And furthermore, wide and careful observation 
brings before us the omnipresence of conscience, 
the solemn fact that the moral law cannot be 
escaped; that though we may put oceans be- 
tween us and courts of justice, infinite space can- 
not separate us from conscience. Neither 
heaven nor hell nor the uttermost part of the 
sea is beyond the immediate action of the moral 
law. There are great distinctions, such as right 



124 CHRISTIANITY, THE WORLD-RELIGION. 

and wrong, expressed in all languages, perceivable 
in all nations. Men everywhere are under obli- 
gation to choose what is good and to shun what 
is evil, and they have felt that in their moral 
choices they have had the approval or disapproval 
of some one above themselves. What is the ex- 
planation of these facts and convictions? If you 
ask History, she answers, God. Pointing to the 
smoke of countless sacrifices and to unnumbered 
temples of worship, she declares that men have 
deemed themselves accountable to a Supreme 
Being whose approval they desired, whose disap- 
proval they feared. The moral law written on 
the human heart is one of the sources and occa- 
sions of all religion. If you ask Philosophy what 
it means, she repeats her sublime axiom, that 
every effect must have an adequate cause. The 
moral law is a stupendous effect, and only the 
rudest materialism denies that it points, together 
with all lower effects, to a Great First Cause, 
for whose existence, as Herbert Spencer affirms, 
"we have a greater degree of evidence than for 
any other truth whatsoever." If you make your 
appeal to the moral sense itself when touched by 
the feeling of guilt, you find an answer in the 
penitential psalms of all religions, or in the words 
of remorseful David, "Against Thee and Thee 
only have I sinned." It is sometimes said that 
God is in the world, but it is truer to say that 
the world is in God, for in Him we and all 
things move and have our being, and thus the 



CHRISTIAN THEISM. 1 25 

universe becomes what Sir Isaac Newton called 
it, "the vast sensorium of Deity," with God 
vital and throbbing in every part of it. 

The enlightened Christian has no need to seek 
refuge in pantheism to find the teaching which 
brings God home to his daily thought and life. 
The immense and continued fascination of pan- 
theistic systems has been vividly apparent in 
India. When Gautama Buddha rejected the 
doctrine of God or gods, and substituted law in 
their stead, when he emptied the Hindu pan- 
theon of its divine intelligences, he sounded the 
death-knell of Buddhism for the land of its birth. 
It has been said that Brahmanism has never for- 
given Buddhism for ignoring the gods, and the 
Hindus finally drove its followers out of India. 
The one doctrine which the philosophic Hindu 
of to-day defends, and in which he finds his 
strength and his consolation, is his doctrine of 
God. The best truth that can be found in pan- 
theism, namely, the Divine immanence, is found 
in the Christian idea of God, coupled with the 
best truth that can be found in Jewish monothe- 
ism, God's personality and control over nature. 3 
To the Christian theist the Hindu pantheism 
with all its fascinations is a golden fog, blotting 
out many a star of truth and hope, because the 
divine personality is obliterated or obscured. 
Judaism intensified the thought of God's indi- 
viduality, His separateness from nature, which is 

3 Appendix, Lecture III, Note 3. 



126 CHRISTIANITY, THE WORLD-RELIGION. 

yet His living garment, as Goethe says, and 
there is lasting truth and comfort in its manifold 
representations of God as Father, Mother, Hus- 
band, King, Fortress, Sun, Shield, Rock, and 
Star. 

But ancient historic Judaism failed to teach a 
perfect theism. The Jew made the mistake of 
believing that, as God's worship had been local- 
ized and restricted it must always remain so. 
God had been localized on Mount Sinai, where 
the law was given ; in the pillars of cloud and 
fire, the symbols of His guidance and glory; in 
the tabernacle and the temple, at Shiloh and 
Jerusalem. God had had a special people with 
a special worship and a peculiar revelation of 
Himself. And the Jew did not understand that 
when Jesus appeared, the hour had come for a 
wider disclosure, when the true worshipers were 
to worship Him in spirit and in truth. Judea 
had been the cradle of the highest spiritual 
knowledge, but Christ came to send it forth as a 
strong man armed to all nations. Back of this 
localization of Deity, back of all these visible 
manifestations, was the Infinite One whom the 
heaven of heavens cannot contain, whose chil- 
dren were to be the spiritual followers of that 
Abraham who believed God and was accepted of 
Him, before one altar had been piled at Shechem 
or Bethel, and when Canaan was no more sacred 
than the unpierced wilds of America. To this 
higher truth Israel was blind ; to this higher 



CHRISTIAN THEISM. 1 27 

truth the Christian world has sometimes been 
blind, having fallen from the height of the Mas- 
ter's teachings. But if the early proclamation 
of the Gospel meant anything in the realm of 
Theism, it meant the bringing home to men's 
hearts the spiritual truths and forces which came 
from the teaching, the person, and the work of 
Christ. It meant the truth that God is love, 
that God is light, that God is spirit. Christianity 
in its purity has held the human heart and mind 
to the great truths which make spiritual worship 
possible, and which make idolatry a degradation 
of man's nobler self. 

The Christian theist has learned the secret of 
worship. He has learned that he himself is 
spirit; that the soul which works through the 
hands and looks through the eyes, which thinks, 
and loves, and wills, which has a mysterious 
relation to the brain, is distinct from its bodily 
servants. The human spirit refuses to submit to 
the measuring-line and the microscope and to 
the tests of the chemist and the mathematician. 
Man is spirit, and may discern and worship God. 
God is spirit, hidden to the eye, inaudible, in- 
tangible. He is love, which has a thousand 
manifestations, shining in the dew and glowing 
in the heavens, resplendent in household affec- 
tions, dazzling at the Cross, but itself only dis- 
cerned by that love in man which is also invisible 
to the eye. God is righteousness, evidenced in 
the crumbling of an empire, and in the sting of 



128 CHRISTIANITY, THE WORLD-RELIGION \ 

a child's remorse, but revealed only to that con- 
science which no crucible can analyze — to that 
spiritual substance in man which is as much more 
ethereal and sensitive than light as the rustle of 
the star-beam is more delicate than the roar of 
Niagara. God is wisdom, shown forth in the 
changing seasons, in the cleansing rainstorm, 
manifest in Providence and in supernatural reve- 
lation, but thus shown forth only to that reason 
in man which sends its invisible thoughts from 
star to star and binds with invisible cords the 
footstool and the throne of God. God is spirit, 
and His worshipers must adore Him through the 
mind and by the medium of truth. He dwell- 
eth not in temples made with hands, as Paul 
said to the bewildered people of Athens; neither 
is He worshiped with men's hands, as we are 
endeavoring to persuade the bewildered people 
of Asia. It is only by the activity of those 
faculties which take hold of God, it is only by 
an individual appropriation of the truth through 
the ministry of the Divine Spirit, that the human 
soul is purified, and thus fitted for true worship. 
Christianity goes to the nations to-day, and 
begins the uplift and regeneration of the spirit 
by teaching that God's true temple is in the 
hearts of men. Their souls must be made holy, 
for God is a God of perfect righteousness, of un- 
spotted holiness. Christianity taught the an- 
cient Greek, and would teach the modern Hindu, 
to be ashamed of deities who are not adorned 



CHRISTIAN THEISM. 129 

with ordinary human virtues. Did not Lord 
Bacon instruct us that it is better to have no 
conception of God than one that is unworthy of 
Him? Holiness is God's diadem, the crown of 
His perfection, without which power and wisdom 
and love itself lose their highest glory. The 
Christian messenger instructs men that the God 
who now commandeth all to repent has never 
committed the slightest wrong, that all His ways 
are righteous, that all His acts are perfect, and 
that if any vice existed in the character of God, 
the worshiping universe must be dumb. Seraphs 
would veil their faces, not in adoration but in 
shame, and the multitudinous symphonies of 
Heaven would die out in a dismal and discordant 
wail, and the pure-shining stars, musical with 
praise, must cease their spheral chimes and hide 
their holy splendors, for the light had forsaken 
the brow of Jehovah, and all His realms were 
darkened to their utmost bound. 

The Christian goes to men with the teaching 
that since God is holy, the way of life is the way 
of holiness. While Christianity is a spiritualism 
that does not despise Nature and a monotheism 
which does not separate God from His world, it 
is also a morality which neither divorces the 
inner from the outer life nor breaks "the 
organic bond between the individual and so- 
ciety." As the God whom Christianity discloses 
is ethical, He is honored by an ethical life, which 
includes a fraternal spirit toward men and a filial 



130 CHRISTIANITY, THE WORLD-RELIGION. 

spirit toward God. "All ethical conduct is 
grounded in religion, and all religious conduct is 
determined ethically." The Power not ourselves 
that makes for righteousness is intensely con- 
cerned in regard to the interior dispositions of 
men. He dwells only in the hearts of the pure, 
the merciful, the meek, the righteous, and the 
loving, and the lowliest savage of the African 
forest, the humblest pariah of the Hindu jungle, 
may construct for God a temple more acceptable 
to Him than any miracle of beauty that ever 
topped the hills of Attica or is to-day embow- 
ered in ilex trees beneath the snowy cone of 
Fujijama. It has been the aspiration of peoples 
and the ambition of kings to embody their 
thought of the Supreme One in enduring and 
costly stone. Through the centuries has breathed 
the spirit that 

" Roofed Karnak's hall of gods, and laid 
The plinth of Philae's colonnade." 

We bow before the religious genius that raised 
the many-pillared fanes of antiquity. We be- 
hold with wonder how the vigorous faith of the 
Middle Ages blossomed out in the Christian 
cathedral. Piety has yearned for an earthly 
habitation. Beneath the dome of St. Peter's 
Church in Rome you feel the uplifting joy of 
being where it seems worthy that God should 
dwell. You enter the great vestibule and push 
aside the heavy curtain and slowly absorb the 
suggestiveness of a scene which sometimes 



CHRISTIAN THEISM. 13 1 

dwarfs and dims the spaciousness and splendor 
of the outer universe. You walk the conse- 
crated pavements where armies might move with 
freedom. There is no oppressiveness in this 
grandeur, no gloom in this solemnity. The 
cheerful light falls tenderly through the ever 
balmy air, on marble and mosaic, on bronze and 
gold. With exultation you move toward the 
central shrine of St. Peter. Everything magni- 
fies as you approach. The pilasters expand into 
pillars, which seem mighty enough to uphold the 
crystal arches of the heavens. Slowly the ma- 
jestic dome opens to your vision, a sculptured 
and emblazoned poem, lifting the aspiration to 
sublimer heights, while its vastness seems lov- 
ingly to enclose and shelter your greatest thought 
of God. But while your heart is thus opened 
by the sensuous imagination, the Divine Spirit 
finds His home, not amid those luminous spaces 
but in the worshiper's soul, and without irrever- 
ence he may say, with Christ, there is something 
here "greater than the temple." Here is love 
which interprets love and renders praises which 
are more acceptable than the adornments of the 
world's cathedral. The architecture of man is 
the plaything of time. The sanctuaries of 
human pride disappear. The road from Delhi 
to the Kutub Minar is strewn far and wide with 
ruinous domes and broken columns, the traces 
of three religions. On Mount Gerizim the 
Samaritan worships at a broken shrine. The 



132 CHRISTIANITY, THE WORLD-RELIGION. 

wild stork perches on the columns of Ephesian 
temples. It is the whiteness of a shattered 
beauty which the Parthenon now lifts into the 
violet ether of Athens. And the time will come 
when the golden lamps about St. Peter's tomb 
shall be extinguished, and the miracle of Michael 
Angelo shall mingle in the dust of ancient Rome, 
but the architecture of God abides. "Ye are 
the temples of the Holy Ghost." "Fairer far 
than aught by artist feigned, or pious ardor 
reared," are the holy places of the soul. The 
Divine One has tabernacled in humanity, and 
made it sacred. In the believer's heart, accord- 
ing to the New Testament, Christ dwelleth, the 
hope of glory. 

But besides this unity and spirituality there 
is still another supreme fact in the Christian 
revelation of God which pre-eminently makes it 
fit to become the universal faith of mankind. 
Christianity alone reveals the Divine One as con- 
tinuously and mercifully seeking after mankind. 
It shows us God standing by the side of fallen 
man at the beginning, with gracious purposes that 
overtop the curse and outrun the consequences 
of transgression. It shows us God inaugurating 
a system of redemption and recovery, and lifting 
above the red flag of the primeval anarchy the 
banner of His love. From first to last the 
Bible is the call of God to His earthly children. 
The Saviour of mankind expressly declared that 
He had not come to condemn the world. He 



CHRISTIAN THEISM. 1 33 

came to reveal the God of all grace ; and a most 
difficult work of the messenger of Christ, whether 
in Canton or Calcutta, is to persuade men, who 
have thought of God as remote and impersonal, 
that He loves them with an affection overpassing 
their utmost imaginations. When we get any 
faintest glimpse of the Divine Fatherhood which 
is the background of Christ's redeeming work, 
and try to measure with our limited vision the 
immeasurable pity of God, a compassion which 
was not brought into being when the angels first 
choired the heavenly songs of Bethlehem, we 
learn, often slowly, to trust, in the midst of all 
the perplexities and griefs of life, that divine 
heart whose pulse-beats, as the Christian believer 
feels, are the life of the universe. And we be- 
lieve and strive to make others believe, not only 
as Abraham did, that the Judge of all the earth 
will do right, but that the Father "who would 
rather suffer wrong than do it," will never see 
one slightest shadow of injustice darkening the 
glory of His great white throne. The Christian 
Bible is the enfranchisement of hope ; it is the 
word of Him who came to destroy the works of 
the devil, and who did not fail; it lifts the Cross, 
with its disclosure of the bleeding heart of in- 
finite pity, above the troubled life of humanity, 
and fills the whole sunset horizon of our faith 
with the jeweled splendors of the New Jerusa- 
lem. It is the gracious and helpful attitude of 
God toward human sin and sorrow which it 



134 CHRISTIANITY, THE WORLD-RELIGION. 

seems to us that men the world over need to 
apprehend. Among the ten thousand difficul- 
ties of the Christian teacher in China to-day, not 
the least is really to open the heart of the people 
to the central truth of redemption — God's love in 
Christ. Preach to them hell, and they believe 
in that already, and they have gone far ahead of 
Dante in making it horrible. They will tell you 
of eighteen tiers of hells, a hell eighteen thou- 
sand miles in circumference and a thousand miles 
high, an iron city, a metropolis of direst tor- 
tures, fire falling from above and ascending from 
below; they will tell you of caldrons of burn- 
ing oil and lakes of blood, and hills of knives, 
and dungeons of bubbling filth, and bridges of 
snakes, and cylinders of eternal fire. But the 
God of Calvary, who stretched out His hands to 
death from love to the guilty, and who carries 
the heaven of grace in His heart, Him they are 
slow, alas! in knowing; the God who is full of 
gentleness and patience and long-suffering; the 
God who is able to lift the Celestial Empire out 
of its spiritual bondage and set it forward on the 
path of progress; the God who can inform with 
celestial life the strong, stolid intellect of China; 
the God whose love floods the universe with 
blessings, and who holds out from His eternal 
throne the golden scepter of mercy. 

The classic text of Christianity in its world- 
embracing efforts is that verse of the fourth Gos- 
pel which begins, "God so loved the world." 



CHRIST/AN THE ISM. I 35 

The illustrious sage of China did not say that, 
and to-day we are informed that the Christian 
preaching of love to God, as a response to His 
love toward us, sounds outlandish to the men of 
Chinese minds in the Middle Kingdom, who seem 
to think ''that it can only come from the lips of 
those who have not been properly trained." 
Confucius did not claim to know much of the 
power that rules in the heavens. Prince Sid- 
dartha, driven into practical atheism, never 
uttered any message of divine love, and so the 
Gospel of Buddha, which modern scholars are 
compiling and printing, seems to Christians a mis- 
nomer. Such is man's need of worship that the 
agnosticism with which Buddha began was not 
forever continued with all his disciples. ''The 
preacher of atheism became himself a god." 
Friendly students of the prophet of Islam have 
sometimes affirmed that Mohammed's God is 
savage, aggressive, almost cruel. The Koran 
speaks much of the Merciful One, but that mercy 
is dimmed by other attributes, and is not made 
real and credible ; Islam is truly the crescent, a 
pale, lunar sickle of gracious truth in the sky of 
religion. I know that we may discern the lumi- 
nous shadow faintly rounded out, but the light is 
narrow and not intense. Allah is a God afar off. 
He does not satisfy the yearnings of the soul, 
and as Kuenen has said, "The people, therefore, 
make a new religion at the graves of its saints; 
it seeks compensation for the dryness of the 



136 CHRISTIANITY, THE WORLD-RELIGION. 

official doctrine and worship ; true universalism is 
to Islam in virtue of its very origin, unattainable. 

As to Hinduism, 4 while it has shown for more 
than two thousand years man seeking, by devious 
ways and through golden mists or deadly vapors, 
the face of God, it seems, until modified by 
Christianity, to have known little, although it is 
rich in fabulous incarnations, of the Supreme 
Love actually in some historic manifestation 
seeking fallen man with divine pity and the pur- 
pose of complete redemption. Other faiths, as 
I have intimated, may appropriate to-day the 
Christian idea and revelation of God's universal 
Fatherhood, finding expression in acts of mercy, 
but we must not forget that what is giving this 
great truth its general acceptance is the teaching 
and work of Christ. There is something rather 
odd in the methods of some Indian reformers 
who, as one of your able journals has written, 
"appropriate the doctrines and motives of Chris- 
tianity and fling them in triumph at Christians." 
How Jesus toiled to inspire in men who were 
out of the way the confidence that He is the 
God-ordained Saviour of mankind! For this He 
strewed His journeys with beneficent miracles 
which drew the attention of the stupidest ; for 
this He showed the tenderest regard for the 
most afflicted and despised; for this He touched 
the whitened skin of the leper and sat at meat 
with publicans and permitted the loving atten- 

4 Appendix, Lecture III, Note 4. 



CHRISTIAN THEISM. 137 

tions of outcast women. For this He denied 
Himself, in one long series of sacrifices, from the 
shadowing of His divine glory in the darkened 
stable of Bethlehem to the culmination of the 
divine tragedy beneath the murky skies of Gol- 
gotha. What is there within the omnipotence 
of Deity which He did not do to show that sin 
is not beyond the reach of God's victorious de- 
livering mercy? He fastened men's minds on 
Himself, that they might know God's radical 
dispositions, His unspeakable and infinite com- 
passions, so that seeing Jesus as He beheld with 
all-pitying eyes the shepherdless multitudes of 
Galilee, we get a glimpse of the heart of God's 
love, that glows over all His numberless stray- 
ing children in all lands, from Arctic ice to 
equatorial palms, and down all the sorrowing 
ages, and that, with a fullness of fire compared 
with which the sun himself is an enfeebled and 
half-smothered flame, burns along the horizon or 
high up in the zenith of our daily life. 

I hope that by what has been thus far said I 
have given no impression that outside of Chris- 
tianity the Divine Spirit has been comparatively 
inactive. God, I find in all the great religions 
and higher philosophies, not only in the modern 
sage who said, "O God I think thy thoughts 
after thee," but in the songs of the ancient 
Vedas where it was written of God that "through 
Him the sky is bright and the earth firm, the 
heaven was established, nay the highest heaven, 



138 CHRISTIAN/TV, THE WORLD-RELIGION. 

and who measured out light in the air." He is 
present in the life of all His creatures. As 
Phillips Brooks once said, " Everywhere through- 
out the world God has made Himself known to 
His children; He is making Himself known to 
His children to-day." Paul did not underrate 
or despise the spiritual knowledge which his 
Greek and Roman hearers already possessed ; he 
frankly confessed the glimpses of truth discov- 
erable in their systems, and while he presented 
the most scathing arraignment of Roman vices 
to be found in literature, yet with his discrimi- 
nating love and intelligence he perceived and 
felt how much of truth God has given to all 
men's consciences and understandings. The 
youthful Buddha felt and said, "There must be 
some supreme intelligence where we could find 
rest; if I attained it, I could bring light to man; 
if I were free myself, I could deliver the world." 
Why may this not have been the working of the 
Spirit of God, and prophetic, like so much which 
we find in Greek, Persian, and Hindu thought and 
hope of Him who was free, and who through 
the disclosure of God's mercy has brought de- 
liverance to the world? Foreshadowings of the 
great facts of incarnation and atonement appear 
in the sacred books of the nations. Many have 
regarded certain strange sentences in the Vedic 
hymns and in the laws of Manu as being "traces 
of the revelation once made to mankind of the 
promised atonement for the sins of the world." 



CHRISTIAN THEISM. 139 

But how fragmentary and feeble are the best 
representations of the God of all mercy to be 
found in other literature compared with the 
mighty and full-orbed truths of the Christian 
Scriptures! The supreme disclosure of the divine 
nature as redeeming love is seen in the Incarna- 
tion of the Son of God. This is the climax of 
all disclosures. The Christian doctrine of God 
in Christ is not merely that a human being at- 
tained the loftiest height of spiritual knowledge 
and remained there through life in the holy of 
holies of religion. The Christian teaching is 
that God's personality, God Himself, took pos- 
session of the temple of the human spirit, so that 
Jesus could say "I and my Father are one," 
and so that "Jesus has for us the religious value 
of God." This Christian teaching remains un- 
shaken. No other faith in history "has been so 
continuous and invariable." And the inspiration 
of the Church's activities to-day, like the foun- 
dation of the Church's hope in the beginning, 
has been this faith that He who was equal with 
God voluntarily withdrew Himself from the un- 
speakable fellowships of the Godhead and took 
a human form and a human nature for our salva- 
tion. The faith of the Church has involved the 
unity of Christ with God and the unity of the 
Holy Spirit, Christ's personal representative in 
the world, with God. "All the higher philoso- 
phies have held to a possible Trinity." The 
doctrine of the Trinity was simply an attempt, 



140 CHRISTIANITY, THE WORLD-RELIGION. 

as one has said, "to give richness, variety, in- 
ternal relations, abundance, and freedom to our 
ideas of God." "Christianity gives us a con- 
ception of a Godhead which has all the constitu- 
ents and conditions of real intellectual, moral, 
and social existence," thus saving us from "the 
deism which shuts up God within the limitations 
or impotences of His own infinitude, and from the 
pantheism which loses Him within the multi- 
tudinous and fleeting phenomena of an ever- 
changing universe. ' ' But the working force of 
Christianity has not been the Trinity, but the 
Incarnation of the Son of God for the redemp- 
tion of man. 5 This revelation of God in Christ 
making atonement for sin is a force of truth and 
of life, and a message of historic fact by which 
the Christian Church has actually delivered men 
from the power and defilement of sin, and by 
which the Church purposes to redeem the world 
from the guilt and love of sin. 

I look around the world to-day and find no 
other religions which seriously attempt the work 
of redemption — "they have no healing for the 
sin-stricken soul." Christianity makes much of 
sin, because the vivid consciousness of sin leads 
to a higher sense of personal responsibility and 
to a closer union with God. The pantheism 
which identifies man with his Creator, making 
the Divine Being the ultimate cause of all evil, 
weakens this and almost eradicates the sense of 

5 Appendix, Lecture III, Note 5. 



CHRISTIAN THEISM. 141 

the personal element. 6 "Pantheism can never 
do justice to the unlimited value of moral toil." 

We are not surprised that Spinoza looked 
upon human freedom as a dream, and rubbed off 
the sharp distinction between good and bad. 
Nor are we surprised that Strauss, when he went 
over into the ranks of materialism, thought the 
hope of individual immortality a delusion. 
While Christianity presents in a holy, personal, 
omnipresent, merciful God an object of worship 
infinitely more satisfactory than any shadowy, 
impersonal Absolute of German or Hindu specu- 
lation, it never degrades man, as pantheism 
always does, "into a fleeting manifestation of 
the great impersonal spirit of nature." It seems 
to us that here in India one of the finest and 
most religious of races has sunk into hopeless- 
ness before the problem of delivering the world 
from sin, and that one of the reasons of its fail- 
ure and despair has been the gradual elimination 
of the thought of sin. Indian philosophy has 
almost destroyed the sense of personal guilt, and 
thus has weakened the will. Not that men have 
been delivered from fear and the desire to do 
many things to placate the Heayenly Power, in 
order, through self-torture, to be reborn into 
some higher existence, and at last to reach the 
painless calm of Deity. The world over, what- 
ever be their philosophy, we hear men crying 
out, "Can any human arm deliver us?" and one 

6 Appendix, Lecture III, Note 6. 



14 2 CHRISTIANITY, THE WORLD-RELIGION. 

is stirred, it has been said, "with a deeper, 
broader sympathy for mankind, when he wit- 
nesses this universal sense of dependence, this 
fear and trembling before the power of the un- 
seen world, this pitiful procession of the un- 
blessed millions ever trooping on toward the goal 
of death and oblivion. And from this stand- 
point, as from no other, may one measure the 
greatness and glory of the Gospel of Jesus 
Christ." 

Christianity, while bringing God and man 
very close to each other, never destroys the 
personality of either, and while it deepens man's 
conviction of his alienation from God, and his 
personal unworthiness, it reaches to him a re- 
storing and delivering hand. Through convic- 
tion of sin the world is taught to look to Christ 
as its Redeemer. As one has said, "It needs 
only to rekindle in man the hunger and thirst 
after righteousness in himself or in the world, in 
order to bring Christ near to him, and to teach 
him to look upon His person with different 
eyes." It is not surprising that in Asia thus 
far men have so little comprehension of some 
aspects of Christian truth ; it is no wonder that 
they are so slow to accept the love of God and 
to yield to Him a personal affection. With 
them God is remote, or, if not remote, imper- 
sonal, or, if not impersonal, not an object of 
grateful love, for they have not seen Him .as He 
is revealed in the face of Christ. "To love God," 



CHRISTIAN THEISM. 143 

it has been said, "would no more occur to a 
Japanese gentleman, than to have his children 
embrace and kiss him," which is considered to be 
"bad form " and never permitted. But Christian- 
ity's first command is to love God supremely, and 
the disposition and ability to obey it are found in 
the primary disclosures of the Gospel. The mes- 
senger to-day, like the great prophet on the 
banks of the Jordan, exclaims, "Behold the 
Lamb of God, who removes the world's sin." 
Look lovingly at the great historic revelation of 
Him who is the sin-bearing Redeemer, embos- 
omed in the highest divinity. The revelation of 
the Lamb is the strong red cord which binds 
into unity this blessed Book of Life. God has 
identified Himself with the long-suffering ten- 
derness, the pardoning love, and redeeming grace 
which are centered in the meek sufferer who died 
on Calvary. It is historically certain that wher- 
ever the Gospel has gained a strong and vital 
hold of non-Christian peoples, it has been 
through the preaching of the Cross, as the su- 
preme manifestation of the suffering love of 
God. 7 And evermore the strength of the Church 
has been not the disclosure of a human virtue so 
eminent as to be called divine, but the revelation 
of a divine nature so loving as to become human 
in its limitations, in its lowliness of spirit. If 
the Church has read the Gospels aright, it has 
made no mistake in claiming that humanity is 
'Appendix, Lecture III, Note 7. 



H4 CHRISTIANITY, THE WORLD-RELIGION. 

not to be lifted by any virtuous energy within 
itself, but that God's life is to enter the decay- 
ing and decrepit race through Jesus, the Son of 
Man, who died for human sin, and re-create the 
whole. The Church of Christ was not to rise 
from the bones of martyred saints and to be filled 
with the memories of a merely human sanctity. 
Such a Church would not have survived the tre- 
mendous assaults of evil in the first three cen- 
turies. The Christian temple was to rise from 
the foundation of God's own nature disclosed in 
the Man of Nazareth, and its altars were to flame 
with offerings made to the crucified Lord of 
glory. Men who are struck with sin and smitten 
with moral death and overwhelmed with despair, 
listen with feeble interest to the story of a fel- 
low-man who, whether his name be Socrates or 
Buddha, in a distant age rose above the wretched 
conditions around him to a lofty height of vir- 
tue. But the world is to be regenerated by the 
story of Him who was the Son of God dwelling 
among men, and who, for love's sake, humbled 
Himself unto the death of the Cross. 

It is the critical and decisive intellectual and 
moral judgment of human life, the conclusion 
reached in regard to the nature of Jesus and 
those New Testament declarations which seem 
opposed and contradictory. We read of His 
humiliation, His dependence on the Father, His 
subjection to the will of the Father. At other 
times we behold Him claiming oneness with 



CHRISTIAN THEISM. 1 45 

God ; we see Him exercising divine powers, for- 
giving sin and arrogating the authority of uni- 
versal judgment. What shall we say to these 
contradictions? Is it a human being naturally 
limited and subordinate, or the Divine One Him- 
self laying aside His glory and taking upon Him 
the restrictions of our fleshly state? Was Christ 
from below ascending heavenward, or was He 
from above descending earthward? Is Christ a 
finger pointing toward God, or is He also and 
chiefly the hand of God reaching down toward 
us? Jesus Himself, according to the Johannine 
record, answers and says, "No man hath 
ascended up into Heaven but He that cometh 
down from Heaven." And Paul speaks of 
Christ as "God over all, blessed forever." "He 
that hath seen Me hath seen the Father," is the 
solemn declaration of Him who spake as never 
man spake. Wherever this truth of the divinity 
of Him who suffered for human sin has been 
received, there and there alone has the Church 
presented a doctrine strong enough to cope with 
pantheism and to give the soul its full deliver- 
ance and enfranchisement. "There is something 
in pantheism," it has been said, "so deep that 
naught in bare deism can meet it. Deism is not 
so deep. And pantheism may well keep the 
house, till a stronger than deism comes to take 
possession of it. In Jesus Christ I find the only 
true solution of the mystery." 

This doctrine once received, we can explain in 



146 CHRISTIANITT, THE WORLD-RELIGION. 

part the opposing evangelic statements. We 
cannot expect in a far-northern hot-house all the 
splendor and luxuriance of the vegetation that 
borders the Amazon ; we cannot condense the 
torrid zone, with all its vegetable wonders, into 
a glass cage, in our northern winter. And so 
Christ taught of the divine nature that hedged 
about and restricted and humiliated in the 
prison-cage of our human flesh, as He was, all the 
unspeakable glories of Heaven and of Him who 
is from everlasting to everlasting, were not re- 
vealed in the Man of Nazareth. In Him was 
the fullness of the Godhead bodily, and pre- 
eminently His moral completeness, so far as 
the body can enclose and disclose the divine 
nature. 

Thus we learn that we are not to dissociate 
from the heart of God, from the very spiritual 
substance of Jehovah, either the person or the 
sacrificial work of Christ. He is the Lamb of 
God, and tells us of a sinlessness which is joined 
to lowliness and humility; a limitless capacity to 
suffer for love's sake, the wide-reaching, all- 
clasping sympathy of God, — a sympathy as ten- 
der for the darkened children of Africa as for the 
proud races of Europe; a sympathy which em- 
braces the famine-smitten millions of this land as 
well as the dwellers in England and America; a 
sympathy out of which, as out of the store- 
house, the workshop, and the garden of the Al- 
mighty, have come Bethlehem, Calvary, the 



CHRISTIAN THEISM. 147 

Man of Sorrows and acquainted with grief, the 
hands which turned leprosy into purity, and 
distress into joy, the white brow of death with 
the acanthine crown more lustrous than Caesar's 
diadem, the suffering heart pierced with the 
spear, the uplifted mercy-seat, the immortal 
Cross burdened with a heavenly Victim who be- 
came thereon more than an earthly Victor. No 
wonder that while the world moves round the 
Cross stands firm. No wonder that to the Chris- 
tian all the light of sacred story and human hope 
gathers round it. No wonder that it has become 
the giant hinge of the gate which divides the 
empire of old night from the growing splendors 
of the Christian day. No wonder that St. Am- 
brose saw in its form the image of a destroying 
sword thrust into the earth: the upper end is 
the hilt about which is clasped almighty power; 
the outstretched arms are the guard ; and its 
body is the sharp blade driven down into the 
head of the Old Red Dragon of sin. 

What other faith has such a clear, decisive 
and satisfying message to carry into the fear- 
haunted and defiled sanctuary of the human 
spirit? Nothing else has answered the question, 
"How can the heart and hand t^Jiat have been 
crimsoned by sin be cleansed?" Other remedies 
do not go to the root of the disease, but Chris- 
tianity does. It undertakes and accomplishes 
the greatest of all tasks. How it does it we 
may not adequately tell. That it does it we 



148 CHRISTIANITY, THE WORLD-RELIGION. 

surely know. And indeed we may now rightly 
appropriate and adapt to our use the old legend 
of the man fallen into the pit. The modern hu- 
manitarian comes along, and, seeing his distressed 
brother, reaches to him a hand of help ; but the 
arm is too short and the strength too feeble. One 
class of teachers comes along, and says: "You 
are not really fallen ; there is no lapse or apos- 
tasy; it is only one stage of the cycle of evolu- 
tion; but, as you believe that you are in peril 
and in misery, I recommend, as efficacious reme- 
dies, pilgrimages to holy places, giving food to 
priests, and repeating the name of the Deity." 
Then Confucius comes along, and says: "Help- 
less sufferer, it is good enough for you ; you have 
not kept the laws of society, you are receiving 
your own deserts, in part at least, for what may 
be beyond I do not know. When the archer 
misses the center of the target he turns round 
and seeks for the cause of his failure in himself." 
And he goes away. Then Mohammed comes 
along and says: "You are predestined to this 
fate unless you repeat my formula and espouse 
the cause of Islam." Then Buddha comes along 
and says, "Make the best of the situation you 
are now in; be patient, subdue desire, have no 
desire for release. Desire is a great evil when it 
is suppressed. Nirvana awaits you. Do not 
trouble yourself about the forgiveness of sins ; all 
things are under the dominion of inexorable laws ; 
your sin will find you out; and the idea of par- 



CHRISTIAN THEISM. 149 

don must be given up." 8 Then Christ comes 
along with a face of brotherly kindness, with 
words of tenderness and hope, brought from the 
bosom of the Godhead, and with a hand of divine 
deliverance, mighty with the power which girt 
the heavens with stars, and He lifts him out of 
the horrible pit, and puts a new song into his 
mouth, that song which is the most gladsome 
music that earth ever hears, and shall blend at 
last with the anthems of those who sing in 
Heaven the song of Moses, the servant of God, 
and the song of the Lamb. 

Christianity delivers men with a real emancipa- 
tion through Christ. It does not reconcile man 
with God, as pantheism attempts, simply by 
obliterating all that makes him man. 9 Chris- 
tianity brings to men a message of divine love 
which can be criticised only by saying that it is 
too good to be true. Christ may be said to 
have lived and taught and died to contradict 
any such criticism. Human speculations have 
never exhausted the significance of Christ's sacri- 
ficial service to mankind. His moral power over 
men has become supreme by those sympathetic 
sufferings through which He has honored the 
divine law. 

He has glorified the perfections of God's holi- 
ness and mercy by His death on the Cross; that 
Cross in its known and unknown elements of 
spiritual power sums up the Gospel message to 

8 Appendix, Lecture III, Note 8. 

9 Appendix, Lecture III, Note 9. 



150 CHRISTIANITT, THE WORLD-RELIGION. 

mankind. It shows us God, not inaccessible, 
but near; not unmerciful, but gracious. It is 
only through Christ that men have ever gotten 
worthy and complete conceptions of God's 
nature. A great modern theologian, speaking 
of the monotheism of Islam, has said: "Indeed 
the defects of Mohammed's idea of God suggest 
to us to inquire whether it is possible to con- 
ceive worthily of God's holiness, except by see- 
ing it expressed in a perfectly holy human life, 
or of His love, except by seeing God incarnate, 
emptying Himself and as a man dying for men 
that they may be one with Him forever." The 
foremost need of mankind is to know that God 
is love ; and Christianity supplies that need as it 
appears to us no other religion does, by setting 
forth God in Christ reconciling the world to 
Himself. We will not accept any vindication of 
God, any release from the weary weight of this 
unintelligible and sorrow-laden world, which like 
pantheism is immoral, enervating to spiritual 
energy and to a holy life. We may rightly point 
men, bewildered and in doubt, to the fact that 
God's world is one of evolution; that the divine 
picture is still unfinished, though, from what has 
been completed, we may also bear down on all 
pessimistic critics of God with the unchallenge- 
able fact that men are themselves largely respon- 
sible, through misdoing, for the greater part of 
the world's misery. But, more than this, Jesus 
Christ is our theodicy, our vindication of the 



CHRISTIAN THEISM. 151 

divine government. As one has written: "He 
did not satisfy our minds with arguments; He 
did not solve objections, or show us why pain 
and sacrifice are necessary throughout creation ; 
nay, He did not declare God's love as a dogma 
and prove it by miracle. The Gospel lies in His 
person. He took upon Himself all that tells 
against divine love — all that has ever wrung from 
men's hearts the bitter words of unbelief, or the 
more chastened cry of agonizing inquiry, 'My 
God, My God, why hast Thou forsaken me?' 
He took it all upon Himself, and, as the Man of 
Sorrows, made it, in His passion and death upon 
the cross, the very occasion for expressing the 
depth of the divine self-sacrifice." And I add: 
That the redemption which Christ offers is, not for 
time only, but for the great world to which all 
men hasten, which lies beyond. The redeeming 
mercy which Christianity associates with His dis- 
closure of God reaches into the life immortal. It 
illumines the darkness of the grave with a light 
which neither Buddha, Confucius, Mohammed, 
nor any Hindu seer or poet ever held in his 
hands, and it makes immortality, the power of 
an endless life, an uplifting, inspiring, purifying, 
comforting, restraining force in the sorrowing 
and tempted life which men live to-day. 

After what has been said do I need to put to 
you the question whether or not the Christian 
revelation of God in His unity, spirituality, holi- 
ness, and redeeming mercy made real through 



152 CHRISTIANITY, THE WORLD-RELIGION. 

His Son, is a satisfactory basis for a universal 
religion? Is not Christ, through whom God be- 
comes near and actual to us, the desire of all the 
nations? And do not the stories of the Incarna- 
tion, which are found almost everywhere, evi- 
dence, as Neander said, "a wide-spread desire 
and expectation of a divine Saviour taking upon 
Himself a human form?" Let me enrich this 
lecture and your lives with the words I take great 
delight in, of the French statesman and theo- 
logian, De Pressense, which I believe are a mes- 
sage that might well be carried to every child of 
our race as a true summary of the Gospel and 
as an eloquent portraiture of all those hopes and 
dreams which are at last fulfilled by the Incarna- 
tion. 10 "The Deliverer is at length come ! — He 
for whom the old Chaldean was yearning when, 
with terror-stricken conscience, he used the in- 
carnation of his seven demons and, weeping for 
his sins, called upon a God whom he knew not. 
The Deliverer is come! whom Egypt foresaw 
when she spoke in words which she understood 
not of a God who was wounded in all the 
wounds of his people. The Deliverer is come ! 
for whom the Magi strained their eyes, looking 
for a Saviour greater than Zoroaster. The De- 
liverer is come ! for whom the India of the Vedas 
panted when she was lifted for a moment above 
her pantheism by the intuition of a Holy God — 
One who could satisfy the burning thirst for par- 
10 Appendix, Lecture III, Note 10. 



CHRISTIAN THEISM. 1 53 

don which none of the springs of her own 
religion would avail to quench. The Deliverer 
is come ! the true Son of God, who alone can lead 
mankind to battle with full assurance of victory; 
the God whose image dimly discerned, had floated 
in fantastic incarnations through the waking 
dreams of the Brahman. The Deliverer is come ! 
He who can have compassion on the sufferer, 
and on all who are desolate and oppressed, with- 
out plunging Himself and the whole world into the 
Buddhist sea of Nirvana. The Deliverer is come! 
He whom Greece had prefigured at Delphi and 
at Eleusis, — the God who saves because He also 
has suffered. The Deliverer is come! He who 
was foretold and foreshadowed by the holy 
religion of Judea, which was designed to free 
from every impure element the universal aspira- 
tion of mankind." 



THE UNIVERSAL BOOK. 



They (the Scriptures), as it were, so impersonate, im- 
mortalize, and universalize the conciousness of Christ, that 
it can exercise everywhere and always its creative and 
normative functions. — The Place of Christ in Modern 
Theology, Fairbairn, p. 499. 

In the presence of a multitude of religions such as are 
represented in this Parliament, we are tempted to believe 
that the ultimate religion will consist in a bouquet of the 
sweetest and choicest flowers of them all. The graves of 
the dead religions declare that not selection but incorpor- 
ation makes a religion strong; not incorporation but recon- 
ciliation, not reconciliation but the fulfillment of all these 
aspirations, these partial truths in a higher thought, in a 
transcendent life. The system of religion here represented, 
or to come, which will not merely elect but incorporate, not 
merely incorporate but reconcile, not merely reconcile but 
fulfill, holds the religious future of humanity. — Professor 
George S. Goodspeed. 

If the dream of a universal religion be true — and we 
have but one science of the universe; and if the Fatherhood 
of God and the Brotherhood of man be true, there can be 
but one bond of spiritual union for such a family — that re- 
ligion cannot possibly be based on the Upanishads. If you 
make them your religion, then you must be content to see it 
confined to a small corner of the globe, and to a select 
coterie even in that corner. For if, as it has often been urged, 
this ancient system can be properly understood only in the 
original Sanskrit, then true religion, at its highest, depends 
not only on superior intellect, but also on special linguistic 
talent, and talent to study a dead language! The thing, at 
lowest, is impracticable. — Studies in the Upanishads, T. E. 
Slater, p. 72. 



FOURTH LECTURE. 

THE UNIVERSAL BOOK. 

It was my fortune, one July day in 1879, to 
pass by the Library of the Andover Theological 
Seminary, in Massachusetts, in which at that 
time were gathered a company of American 
scholars engaged in revising the translation of 
the New Testament, a part of the greater com- 
pany busy over the entire Christian Scriptures. 
Had I said to these men, "Is there any real de- 
mand for such an immense amount of scholarly 
toil over that ancient Book? Why should a 
hundred famous scholars, working for ten years, 
lavish on this version more of labor than was 
ever before expended on a single volume?" — 
they might have answered, "This is deemed 
the Word of Eternal Life for one hundred mil- 
lions of our English-speaking race, soon to be 
two hundred millions, already encompassing the 
globe, and, within a century, to shape its des- 
tinies. We believe that no labor is ill-spent 
that shall make it a better transcript of the 
originals. We expect that our work will be a 
new bond holding together the nations of com- 
mon faith, and that it will greatly stimulate the 

i57 



158 CHRISTIANITY, THE WORLD-RELIGION. 

zeal for Biblical study, which is already a hope- 
ful sign of the present time. Outgrown or obso- 
lescent, did you say? The Christian Bible has 
only begun its beneficent mission. In the hands 
of the two leading nations speaking the English 
tongue, and those of kindred faith, it is to shine 
like a newly-risen sun over a darkened globe." 

Leaving the Theological Library, I might have 
chanced to meet that venerable theologian, Pro- 
fessor Edwards A. Park ; and had I put to him 
the question, if the Bible was not losing its hold 
over the modern world, he might have an- 
swered: "1 have no faintest quiver of fear that 
this book has been undermined or disintegrated 
in an age when it is better understood than ever 
before. It is an anvil which has worn out many 
hammers. The geologist's pick and the as- 
tronomer's telescope and the archaeologist's 
spade and the biologist's microscope were once 
thought to have disproved Scripture; Darwin's 
first great book was claimed by many to have 
sounded the death-knell of Revelation, but the 
most fruitful third of a century that Biblical 
Christianity has ever known followed the publi- 
cation, in 1859, °f Darwin's "Origin of Species." 
Then, pointing to the brick dormitories of the 
old seminary, he might have said: "From those 
buildings, in my own time, hundreds of young 
men have gone forth to preach the Word of Life 
in every land from the Columbia to the Ganges. 
They have given the Scriptures to many nations 



THE UNIVERSAL BOOK. 159 

in their own tongues, and there is no man living 
who knows enough to read the alphabets of the 
languages into which, in my day, Andover stu- 
dents have translated the Bible." 

Thus, at the outset, I bring before you this 
distinctive feature of Christianity; that it is giv- 
ing to the world its Bible. It gives it in a mul- 
titude of languages. The Moslem offers his 
Koran in one. The representatives of the other 
faiths are not eager to furnish Christendom with 
translations of their own sacred books. Some 
of them do not even scatter them widely among 
their own people. The latest writer on the re- 
ligions of Japan has said: "The Buddhist scrip- 
tures were numerously copied and circulated 
among the learned class, yet neither now nor 
ever, except here and there in fragments, were 
they found among the people. For although 
the Buddhist canon has been repeatedly im- 
ported, copied by pen, and in modern times 
printed, yet no Japanese translation has ever 
been made." 

Having endeavored, in my first Lecture, to 
show some of the Universal Aspects of Chris- 
tianity; and having in the second Lecture pointed 
to some of the World-wide Effects of the Chris- 
tian faith on individual and national life; and 
having in the last Lecture considered Christian 
Theism as the Basis of a Universal Religion, — I 
ask you now to consider, in a large way, the 
Christian Scriptures, which I have called the 



160 CHRISTIANITY, THE WORLD-RELIGION. 

Universal Book, although, with the late Professor 
Blackie, I prefer to describe the Bible as "a col- 
lection of books, with a backbone of history and 
biography of the highest kind, stretching over a 
period of more than three thousand years." 
Christianity presents, as its text-book, its rich 
and abundant message, the Universal Bible, a 
volume of well-defined proportions and contents 
like the Koran, distinguishable clearly from the 
glosses and comments and parasitic growths 
which have expanded both the Brahmanic and 
Buddhistic Scriptures into immense and varying 
proportions. Speaking generally, and not for- 
getting the Protestant and Catholic divergence 
over the Apocryphal Books, we may say that 
the Christian Scriptures are a well-defined col- 
lection of sacred writings, fitted, as we believe, 
for the spiritual instruction, and sure, final, au- 
thoritative guidance of mankind, in connection 
with which we must not forget the most im- 
pressive fact, that the experience of nineteen 
centuries has produced nothing worthy to be 
added to them. 

The position which the Bible holds in Chris- 
tian faith is depicted in Kaulbach's cartoon of 
the Era of the Reformation. Gathered in an 
ample portico are the chief men of the fifteenth 
and sixteenth centuries, the theologians, the 
poets, the artists, the philosophers, the discov- 
erers — a noble group — in one of the greatest ages 
of Christian history ; but in the center of them 



THE UNIVERSAL BOOK. 161 

all stands the German monk of Wittenberg, 
Martin Luther, with arms upraised and holding 
the open volume of God's Word, whose pages 
seem to be the light illumining the illustrious 
assembly. But ours, far more than the Luth- 
eran, is an age of Biblical enlightenment. At 
International Expositions some of us have had 
put into our hands a small pamphlet, in which 
the most precious verse of the third chapter of 
John's Gospel was printed in nearly three hun- 
dred languages and dialects, and we have thus 
gained a new feeling of the universality of the 
Christian faith. In the last fifty years the 
Book which we reverently name the Word of 
God has secured admission into almost every 
part of the globe ; has crossed the Rio Grande 
into Mexico, and the Orinoco and Amazon into 
the heart of South America; has entered the 
gates of Japan, China, India, and has become a 
torch of light which is illumining the Dark Con- 
tinent. More than two hundred millions of 
copies in all of the great and most of the minor 
tongues of men, have told the Story of Redemp- 
tion the wide world round. And we believe it 
to be just as life-giving to-day as when it first 
entered into the spiritual blood of the English 
nation, or when, in the fourth century, Con- 
stantine ordered the writing out of fifty costly 
manuscripts of the Bible for the churches of 
Byzantium. 

It is with reverence and amazement that we 



1 62 CHRISTIANITY, THE WORLD-RELIGION. 

think of this unique and wondrous Book. To 
some of us the most imposing building in Lon- 
don is not Westminster Abbey, that sacred meet- 
ing-place of religion and renown ; or the Parlia- 
ment Houses, with their memories of political 
strife and achievement; or the British Museum, 
the chief treasury of the world's learning; or 
St. Paul's Cathedral, the greatest of Protestant 
churches: more impressive still is the building 
of the British and Foreign Bible Society, within 
which we have seen this Book in nearly all the 
languages of the earth ; where we could pur- 
chase it, not as our ancestors were compelled to 
do before the days of Gutenberg, as the costliest 
book in the world, but the New Testament for 
an English penny, and the whole Bible for a 
sixpence; where we could lay our hands on 
copies of the Book which the poor and the per- 
secuted had treasured as the choicest gifts of 
Heaven; and where we could meditate on the 
far-reaching empire of British commerce which 
tends towards the ultimate prevalence of Biblical 
Christianity. As you stand by the Bank of 
England, in the heart of the richest of capitals, 
and see about you the commercial houses of Cal- 
cutta, Melbourne, and Canton, the Banks of 
America, New Zealand, and Australia, Canada, 
India, China, and, as you look up at the Royal 
Exchange, above whose architrave is the statue 
of Commerce, on either side of which are figures 
of English, Chinese, Negro, Greek, Indian, Per- 



THE UNIVERSAL BOOK. 163 

sian, Turkish, and Arabian merchants, while be- 
low is the inscription "The earth is the Lord's 
and the fullness thereof;" or, as you walk down 
the Thames to the port of London, and let your 
imagination tell the stories of those ships which 
do business in the great waters; as you think of 
the masts which have shuddered amid the ice- 
bergs of Labrador, or have caught the gleam of 
the Southern constellations "in the long twilight 
of the Antarctic seas;" as you remember that 
these barks have borne to the world's center the 
cotton of Egypt, the teas of the Celestial Em- 
pire, the wheat of America, the spices of Cey- 
lon, the oranges of Sicily, the timber of New 
Zealand, the coffee of Brazil, the ivory of the 
Congo, and the furs of Hudson's Bay, — you have 
been thankful that you have seen also the 
treasures of England's great Bible House, and 
that, with those world-wide conquests over land 
and ocean by which Great Britain has become 
the first of commercial nations, are joined the 
power and the disposition to carry around the 
globe the knowledge of the True God contained 
in His Word, that God of Righteousness and of 
Love to whom, according to the prophet, the 
abundance of the seas shall yet be converted. 

Those who have carried the Bible to the non- 
Christian nations have accomplished a great work 
in opening up the world to our sight. Without 
them the greatest of modern geographers, Carl 
Ritter, confesses that he could not have written 



164 CHRISTIANITT, THE WORLD-RELIGION. 

his chief book. They have rendered more real 
service to geography than all the geographical 
societies. Oriental linguistic learning has been 
largely indebted to these Christian heralds, trans- 
lators, and teachers of the Bible, who have en- 
abled "the German in his closet' ' to compare 
more than two hundred languages. 

All great books are surrounded in time with 
veneration and kindle noble enthusiasm. Classical 
literature has had its devotees and its martyrs. 
Virgil was the object of Dante's fervent devo- 
tion. St. Chrysostom slept with the comedies 
of Aristophanes under his pillow. Alexander 
reposed his head on the resounding lines of 
the Iliad. Petrarch searched sea and land for 
ancient manuscripts, and wept because he could 
not read Homer in the original. Lady Jane 
Grey, as Macaulay loved to mention, sat in the 
lonely oriel, fixed to Plato's story of the death of 
Socrates, unmindful of the blowing horn and 
rushing steed without. Byron died for Greek 
liberty from devotion to Greek learning, with the 
name of Greece upon his lips. But such inci- 
dents are over-matched a hundred-fold by Chris- 
tian devotion to the Bible, and the sob of the 
great Italian sentimentalist because he could not 
read Homer in Greek, is meaningless beside the 
moan of the slave girl, sorrowing that she could 
not read the words of Jesus in her own tongue. 
Thousands have endured martyrdom for the 
verities of this Book. The earth is rich with the 



THE UNIVERSAL BOOK. 1 65 

blood of those who would not sell this truth for 
their lives. 

We know how pathetic oftentimes has been 
the patriotic enthusiasm of the Israelite for that 
part of the sacred Scriptures which he deems 
divine, and regards as his own national posses- 
sion. There is a devotion among Moslems to 
the Koran which is strangely thrilling and sug- 
gestive, but with the Jew and the Christian the 
Bible is not a charm or an amulet, but a fount- 
ain of life. While the Moslem may tell you of 
negro boys on the banks of the Congo who are 
able to repeat in Arabic the Prophet's holy book 
from the first Surah to the last, without under- 
standing a word of it, the Christian will point to 
millions upon millions of men, women, and chil- 
dren poring every Lord's day intelligently over 
the pages which tell the great story of God's 
love in man's redemption. 

The sacred literatures of the world are almost 
immeasurable. Recent scholarship has given us, 
in fifty volumes of translations, the Oriental 
Bibles, but they might have been expanded into 
four hundred volumes. In the sacred writings 
of the nations there are treasures which are 
valuable to the student of extinct religions, like 
the Book of the Dead, captured from Egyptian 
sepulchres, useful in the knowledge of the 
thought of ancient Egypt which it furnishes, 
but by the side of all living scriptures indeed a 
Book of the Dead. There are the old Akkadian 



1 66 CHRISTIANITY, THE WORLD-RELIGION. 

and Assyrian hymns; there are the sacred writ- 
ings of the Parsees, the Avesta, the records of 
the old Iranian faith, prayer-books, rituals of an 
almost extinct race, which have been called "the 
ruins of a religion." There is the ancient Kojiki 
of Japan, a mosaic of myths joined together 
oftentimes with indecent love-stories. But we 
reach a loftier level or come more closely to the 
realm of life, when we note the ancient books of 
the Chinese, the works of Confucius, the Chinese 
classics, or the treatises of the philosopher 
Laotze, those books of poetry and of history, of 
political economy and those maxims of ethics 
by which Chinese thought has been held with 
iron rigidity for ages. Then there are the Tri- 
pitaka which contain the abundant doctrines, 
metaphysics, ethics, and legends of the Buddhist 
faith, expanded in Thibet into three hundred 
and twenty-five folio volumes, found in shorter 
form in Siam, but even then more than five 
times as voluminous as our Scripture, Buddhist 
writings, in the midst of whose metaphysics and 
legends we discover an abundance of lofty 
thought and noble sentiment. Then there are 
the Vedas, the popular songs of the ancient 
Aryans, sung long ago in the fair fields of the 
Indus and by the streams of the Punjab, the 
early Vedic literature, which according to Indian 
orthodoxy is inspired in every line, the work of 
the Deity, writings supplemented, as we know, 
by what has become much more potential than 



THE UNIVERSAL BOOK. 167 

the ancient oracles, the Brahmanas and the phi- 
losophies of the Upanishads, together with the 
eighteen Puranas, followed by the sacred and 
semi-inspired and enormous poems which have 
exercised for ages such a spell over many mil- 
lions, the Ramayana and the Mahabharata, 
whose stories are the delight of the Hindu fes- 
tivals. Then there is, perhaps the only one of 
the world's sacred books worth naming that is 
younger than the New Testament, unless I ex- 
cept the Bible of the Sikhs, the Mohammedan 
Koran, which the faithful deem the only miracle 
needed to authenticate their religion as ultimate 
and divine. Doubtless a "measure of inspira- 
tion" belongs, as Mr. Balfour has written, "to 
the ethico-religious teachings of the great Ori- 
ental reformers;" "these things," he says, "are 
assuredly from God, and whatever be the terms 
in which we choose to express our faith, let us 
not give color to the opinion that His assistance 
to mankind has been narrowed down to the 
sources, however unique, from which we im- 
mediately and consciously draw our own spiritual 
nourishment." 

But, in the Lecture this afternoon, I shall 
hope to indicate some of the reasons for holding 
that the Christian Bible, and that alone, is worthy 
to be called the universal sacred Book of hu- 
manity. And at the very outset we are con- 
fronted by the interesting fact that the Jewish 
and Christian Scriptures originated in a land 



1 68 CHRISTIANITY, THE WORLD-RELIGION. 

which was itself an epitome of the whole world. 
The configuration of Palestine, its immense 
variations of natural scenery, its vast range of 
climate, tell a unique and wonderful story, for in 
that little realm of sacred history, scarcely 
larger than Wales or New Hampshire, we dis- 
cover the scenery of the entire globe. The 
region where the writers of this Book lived and 
wrote is no Arabian desert, like that from which 
the Koran came forth, though deserts fringe its 
eastern and southern borders. It reproduces the 
geographical features of the whole earth, and in- 
dicates, it would seem, that this Book was meant 
to meet the wants of all mankind. It is full of 
the imagery of the sea, and is fitted to be the 
companion and friend of those whose lives are 
spent on the great waters. Cowper's cottager 
reads it on a quiet English shore, and the sailor 
in the storm thinks of Paul on the Mediterran- 
ean, and of Him who calmed the Galilean waves. 
The Bible is full of pastoral imagery. It tells of 
a God who is a shepherd, of a darling king who 
came from the sheepfold, of a Saviour whose 
advent was announced to the keepers of flocks, 
and the multitude who ply the shepherd's trade 
on Scottish Highlands or western prairies find it 
preeminently the shepherd's book. But the 
Bible is warm with the breath and brilliant with 
the light of the Eastern clime. It tells of gar- 
dens and spices and pomegranates, of roses and 
lilies, and jewels and palms. Its imagery is 



THE UNIVERSAL BOOK. 169 

oriental in its richness, and is it not, in this re- 
spect at least, the book for the teeming millions 
who dwell beneath the tropic sun? But it is 
also a book of mountains and snow and ice; the 
hoar frost of Lebanon is on it. The snowy 
splendor of Hermon casts a cold light on its 
pages; and is it not the book for the Alpine 
herdsman, and even for the far-off tribes that 
watch the unsetting sun amid the white and 
ghastly solitudes of the North? 

But this Book which Christians deem the pre- 
eminent divine revelation, reflects not only the 
outer life of the world, but also the whole inner life 
of humanity. We know that primarily the Bible 
is a story, the story of redemption, interwoven 
with fascinating biographies, and almost every 
variety of literature. Nothing stirs the mind 
and heart like action, dramatic, heroic, progress- 
ive, human action. Can anything be found in 
literature which, for the delight of the young 
and the instruction of the aged, is equal to the 
stories in the Old and New Testaments? The 
Bible is the history of man on all sides of his 
nature, in every aspect of his character, from the 
vilest to the holiest. When understood, as the 
best Christian scholarship now understands it, it 
is not exposed to the objections which scornful 
unbelief has often flung against it. The Bible is 
the literature, the spiritual and choice literature, 
of a great and heaven-guided people, a literature 
resplendent with universal moral and spiritual 



170 CHRISTIANITY, THE WORLD-RELIGION. 

truths, full of elements human and divine, per- 
fectly adapted to its supreme work of restoring 
the soul, not a treatise of science or history by 
the pen of the Almighty and All-wise, but the 
inspired human record of prophets, kings, patri- 
archs, seers, apostles, warriors, poets, fishermen. 
It is colored by the prismatic hues of many 
minds; it is not the product of one generation, 
but of nearly fifty, not in one language but 
mostly in two, the simple and fervent Hebrew 
for the Old Testament, the literary and phil- 
osophical Greek for the New. The divine in- 
spiration comes to us from rabbis and shepherds, 
from the statesman-like Moses, the visionary 
Isaiah, the practical Peter, the argumentative 
Paul, the mystical John. The word spoken is 
for children and for the aged, for women and for 
men, for the rich and the humble, for the sove- 
reign and the subject, for the magistrate and 
criminal, for the exile, the sorrow-laden and the 
dying. The Spirit of God reaching us through 
such various channels appeals to gratitude and 
hope, to fear and to love. As one who denied 
its divine origin has written, "It goes equally to 
the cottage of the plain man and the palace of the 
king. It is woven into the literature of the 
scholar and colors the talk of the street. It blesses 
us when we are born ; gives names to half Chris- 
tendom ; rejoices with us; has sympathy with 
our mourning ; tempers our griefs to finer issues. 
It tells the story of one who was carpenter and 



THE UNIVERSAL BOOK. 171 

king, peasant, and Redeemer, child and youth 
and man, and the Son of God, the story which 
charms the evening fireside and consoles the 
heart of the dying believer. 

Remember that the Biblical literature has not 
come to us under any monotonous form, not as 
a collection of precepts, strung together like those 
of the Confucian and Buddhist scriptures, and 
not as the production of a single mind, like the 
Koran, where the chapters, excepting the first, 
which is a brief prayer of thanksgiving, are 
arranged mechanically, beginning with the 
longest and ending with the briefest. Our Bible 
has greater variety even than the Hindu sacred 
books, which resemble it in this respect, but it 
is not a voluminous and almost endless encyclo- 
paedia of undefined and interminable extent, 
which even a company of scholars, working for 
two decades, would not fully explore. It is a 
book which a ten-years child may read in a fort- 
night, and which is now brought within the reach 
of the poor, both in India and America, and yet 
it is a book which a lifetime of study never 
begins to exhaust. It has almost infinite variety, 
scores of authors living through a period of per- 
haps fifteen centuries contributing to it, and 
writing in different styles and tongues their 
different kinds of literature. We have dramatic 
poetry like Job, which many of us deem with 
Carlyle "the greatest of human compositions," 
epic poetry, which is really history, like the 



172 CHRISTIANITY, THE WORLD-RELIGION. 

story of Joseph and David, tragedies which 
Shakespeare and the Greeks have not surpassed 
in terror, in the fate of Absalom and Ahab, of 
Jezebel and Judas and Ananias; pastorals like 
Ruth, with which Dr. Johnson amazed and de- 
lighted a fashionable circle of ignorant sceptics 
in London ; love songs like that attributed to 
Solomon, sententious precepts like the Proverbs; 
grandest oratory like the writings of Isaiah, 
which Milton loved and praised; fascinating 
biographies like the Gospels, grave practical let- 
ters like those of Paul, profoundest principles of 
statesmanship running through the Old Testa- 
ment prophets, missionary annals like the Acts 
of the Apostles, visions of earthly and heavenly 
victory over evil like the Apocalypse. 

And to prove its universal adaptation still 
further, the Bible is a book which, unlike some 
other sacred scriptures, can be readily trans- 
lated. Its loveliness and its inspiring power do 
not lie, as with the Koran, in the original text. 
The Bible can be put into all tongues and be- 
come, like Luther's translation into the German, 
or like the King James version into the Eng- 
lish, the noblest product and conservator of a 
great modern speech. Into hundreds of the 
minor languages and dialects the Bible has gone 
and has not lost its glory, and sometimes it lifts 
those languages and their people with them, put- 
ting noble conceptions into the place of debasing 
ideas. Where its truths have been preached, in 



THE UNIVERSAL BOOK. 173 

the last fifty years, a thousand church spires rise 
above the vanishing idolatries of the Pacific 
Archipelago. Going to new nations, the Bible 
has introduced them into the noblest intellectual 
companionships; has made them contemporaries 
with the vast and wonderful history recorded in 
its pages; has placed them with Adam in the 
primeval garden amid the trees of Paradise ; with 
Abraham on the mysterious mount of sacrifice ; 
with Moses before the majesty of Egypt and the 
infinite glory of Jehovah; with Jesus on the 
mount of Beatitudes, the awful summit of Cal- 
vary and the peaceful hill over which bloomed 
the skies of His Ascension, thus widening their 
intellectual horizon until it has become conter- 
minous with God's purposes of love to His chil- 
dren. 

Does it not appear to you that, in comparison, 
the ministry of other sacred books has been 
limited to national areas? Much of the best 
modern poetry, where the beauty depends so 
much on the artistic expression, cannot be suc- 
cessfully put into most other tongues, but the 
poetry of the Psalter, for example, is primarily 
in the thought, and thought can go everywhere. 
Expert scholars inform us that the Bibles of other 
peoples when translated into English are as 
variant from the original form and melody as can 
well be imagined. Many Mohammedans deem 
it a sacrilege for the Koran to talk in infidel 
tongues ; the very words which the prophet die- 



174 CHRISTIANITY, THE WORLD-RELIGION. 

tated, and which his scribes wrote down on palm- 
leaves and shoulder-blades, must be learned in 
the Arabic and repeated in the original. But 
there can be no life-giving power in such exer- 
cises. An intelligent world is not to be per- 
manently influenced by superstitions. But the 
Bible, entering as life and truth, justifies its 
claims by what it has wrought for the savage and 
civilized races of men. It has lifted the mind 
and transformed the life, enlarged the horizon 
and given to human darkness the bright atmo- 
sphere of celestial worlds. To the ancient Greek 
the knowledge of the Old Testament and the 
New brought fresh constellations to his sensitive 
and ever-expanding intelligence; and, surveying 
the effects which the Bible has wrought on some 
modern peoples, like the Japanese, ambitious to 
get out of the primitive stages of civilization, one 
writer, using a thoroughly modern metaphor, 
tells us that the " translation of the Bible is like 
building a railroad through the national intel- 
lect." 

Mr. Lowell has said that the only universal 
authors are Dante, Shakespeare, Cervantes, and 
Goethe. They translate well, both from their 
style and from their broad humanity. But the 
four magnates of literature whom he eulogizes, 
when compared with the writers of the Scrip- 
tures, reach but a few, and they do not speak or 
claim to speak with any authority on the chief 
themes of human concern, and we may say with- 



THE UNIVERSAL BOOK. 175 

out contradiction, that the most popular poet in 
all the world to-day is none of these, but David 
of Bethlehem, using that name to represent the 
succession of singers who gave us the chief de- 
votional book of the world. And I think we 
may safely argue the permanent influence of the 
Biblical literature on the modest ground that it 
is literature, and not a book of science, law, or 
systematized theology. Books of science are 
left behind in the march of progress, while the 
great poets are always in the vanguard of human 
life. But the Biblical literature abides also, be- 
cause it speaks through object lessons to the 
child-heart, which comes back to earth with each 
new generation, living in its own paradises and 
delighting in the pictures which bring immortal 
truth to youthful eyes, and furthermore, be- 
cause, while thus addressing the soul of child- 
hood, it reaches the depths of all human need, 
keeping ahead of the most disciplined mind and 
luring the imagination on and on with dreams of 
the infinite and eternal. I say that it fits into 
all men's needs, those old and ever-returning 
spiritual wants which belong to men not as mem- 
bers of a nation, but as members of a race. 
And yet, by its vastness, variety, and constant 
revelation of new truths and adaptations, it 
keeps abreast of the eager intellect and yearning 
heart with every new occasion and epoch of his- 
tory. What an inspiring power, preeminent 
among all books, this volume has had over the 



176 CHRISTIANITY, THE WORLD-RELIGION. 

intellectual life! The most radiant and productive 
period in the literary history of England, the 
century extending from the birth of Shakespeare 
to the close of Milton's life, was that wherein, 
according to perhaps the wisest of English his- 
torians, the people became the people of one 
Book, and that book the Bible. This is no sur- 
prise. The Bible presents a series of unequaled 
literary phenomena. Paul has left us profounder 
analyses of character, of the human soul in its 
conflicts with sin, than we can discover else- 
where. 

A Book which contains the Gospel of John, 
which Schaff called "the most important literary 
production ever written by man;" a Book which 
has given to mankind all the pure and strong and 
vigorous monotheism now prevailing in our race, 
among nations as diverse as those who dwell in 
Scotland and those who dwell in Arabia; a Book 
whose prolonged history was a manifest prophecy 
of the Messiah, culminating in the matchless 
person and teachings of Jesus Christ, and through 
whose record there runs by the side of human 
sin the current of divine redemption, a Book 
which opens with creation's story, written long 
before the birth of science, and conformed to that 
theory of development from the simple to the 
complex, and from the lower to the higher, 
which science now wears as its most lustrous 
crown; a Book which deals with those stories of 
the earth's origin and of the earth's destruction 



THE UNIVERSAL BOOK. 177 

by a deluge in such a way as to demonstrate its 
moral superiority above the other traditions and 
accounts which have been left to us; a Book 
which has furnished in its Psalms, written more 
than two thousand years ago, the one devotional 
volume most acceptable to the enlightened 
nations of to-day; those Psalms on which John 
Bright declared he would be content to stake the 
question whether there is or there is not a Divine 
revelation ; a Book which has furnished mankind 
the authority for that Sabbath of rest, without 
which civilization would rapidly sink into phy- 
sical decay and moral barbarism ; a Book which 
through its flaming insistence on righteousness, 
its doctrine of retribution and its disclosures of 
the Christ, oppose the degrading and downward 
tendencies of sin, and is lifting great portions of 
our race into a better manhood, and which car- 
ries on the forefront of its Gospel the priceless 
truth of immortality, making our earth in spite 
of its sorrows and transgressions, the suburb and 
gateway of celestial life, — shines so pre-emi- 
nently, that many Christians feel disinclined to 
bring it in comparison with other sacred writings. 
Robertson Smith has said, "We have no need 
to go outside of the Bible history to learn any- 
thing of God and His saving will toward us." 
Because the Bible alone is sufficient, it seems to 
us that it will ultimately supplant other sacred 
literatures. Unlike them it is unified by a 
divine purpose, a historic continuity running 



17S CHRISTIANITY, THE WORLD-RELIGION. 

through it all. The various books in the library 
of our Scriptures are held into oneness by the 
prophetic character of the older volumes, and 
the historic consummations of the later. Or we 
may find the unity of the Scriptures in the pro- 
gressive ethical development which culminates in 
Jesus Christ. Or we may say that the Bible is 
unified by the revelation of the kingdom of God 
which runs through its pages. Or, looking at 
the Scriptures as a history of Redemption, we 
may say that Christ is the unifying principle of 
this multiple volume, and that from Abel's altar 
to the coronation of the Lamb, there is a gradual 
and glorious progress of redemptive disclosure. 
We may find in it the truths which are cherished 
by all earth's sages and saints, the best which 
Socrates and Seneca gave to Greek and Roman, 
and every higher principle and precept of the 
Koran, and all that is true in every cherished 
writing of Indian philosopher and poet and 
moralist ; but far more than this it is distin- 
guished from other literature, as one has written, 
" Because the noble truths which exist every- 
where as scattered fragments are here to be 
found purified and centralized, even as the silver 
from the earth is tried and purified seven times 
in the fire." The doctrines which the human 
mind and heart have guessed at, and, it may be, 
involved in much of error, are found in the 
Scriptures, freed from all weakness % and defile- 
ment. The Biblical teachings in regard to God 



THE UNIVERSAL BOOK. 179 

and immortality, incarnation, and the atonement 
bear the brightness of celestial truth. 

I rejoice with another "at the richness of the 
Biblical element in non-Christian literature." 
For example, the Indian Missionary, John Laza- 
rus, of Madras, in his dictionary of Tamil prov- 
erbs, says: "Many of these sayings can bear 
comparison with those of the greatest sages the 
world has ever produced ; some are worthy of 
the divine Teacher Himself." 1 I feel the sacred- 
ness of human aspiration after God everywhere 
and of the deepest human thought about duty. 
One has said: "Let the student really master a 
philosophy like Confucianism, and he will better 
illustrate the Christian grace of humility." 

The prophets of that elder day, 
The slant-eyed sages of Cathay, 
Read not the riddle all amiss 
Of higher life evolved from this ; 
Nor doth it lessen what He taught, 
Or make the Gospel Jesus brought 
Less precious, that His lips retold 
Some portion of that truth of old. 

The domain of revelation is world-wide, but 
while we grant this, there is no need of our con- 
founding the "mixed, uncertain whisperings, 
with the articulate voicings of the Word." Non- 
Christian literature shows that men everywhere 
have been groping after the perfect, and, though 
they have seen it only in fragments, they will yet 
rejoice in the pleroma, the fullness which is found 

1 Appendix, Lecture IV, Note 1. 



I So CHRISTIANITY, THE WORLD-RELIGION. 

in the Christ and in His Word. Mohammedan- 
ism has been a tremendous force, and Islam 
gained something at least from the Old Testa- 
ment Scriptures. Kuenen described Islam as 
"the kernel of Judaism transplanted to Arabian 
soil/' But the human heart needs for its purest 
and highest life not fragmentary but full-orbed 
spiritual truth, and the Bible rightly interpreted, 
the Bible in its " total impression," is the Word 
of Him in whom are all the riches of wisdom and 
knowledge. 

The instructed Christian does not believe in 
the Scriptures as a sacred charm or rosary, where 
each bead is as holy and beneficent as the rest. 
The writers of our Bible were not mere types in 
the hand of the divine printer. The truth is 
that the Bible is an organic growth like the hu- 
man body. All parts of it may be essential to 
perfection though all are not essential to the 
continuance of vitality. Hence questions about 
the perfection of different portions of the Scrip- 
tures are like inquiries about the perfection of 
different members of the body, and more still, 
like questions about the perfection of different 
stages in the same growth. The man of fifty is 
a completer revelation of humanity than the 
child of ten, but the child may be as perfect for 
that stage of development as the man for his 
period of growth. So the earlier books of the 
Bible may be considered the childhood of reve- 
lation, and are as perfect for their stage in the 



THE UNIVERSAL BOOK. 181 

progress of the Scriptures, as the New Testa- 
ment is for the later disclosures of God. They 
were the great foundation stones that must be 
laid solid and deep before the splendid super- 
structure could lift its pinnacles toward the sky. 
Hard discipline was required to teach funda- 
mental truths. God took Israel in hand and by 
the hand. He is revealed in signs and terrible 
wonders; He is made real by anthropomorphism. 
These representations, figurative, bold, passionate 
and poetical, have misled both the unimaginative 
theologian and the burlesquing unbeliever; but 
because they are passionate and not coldly 
scientific, bold and not guarded, these descrip- 
tions made enduring impressions on the hard 
heart of Israel, and the constant picture-lessons 
in tabernacle and altar, in temple and solemn 
feasts are not useless in the world's moral educa- 
tion to-day, for dull and gross humanity in part 
remains. The world needs the whole Bible, the 
earlier revelation is necessary to the support and 
explanation of the later. The New Testament, 
it has often been said, " canonizes the old," and 
the deeper we study them both, the stronger I 
think will be the conviction that this Book in its 
entirety is fitted to universal need, and that to 
divide it into fragments, is to diminish its 
power. 

Under the Biblical training we do not behold 
any retrogression, as in some other sacred litera- 
tures, to lower conceptions ; but rather a steady 



1 82 CHRISTIANITY, THE WORLD-RELIGION. 

advance to an ethical monotheism, crowned by 
the Messianic Revelation in Christ. Under the 
tuition of the Bible there is no down-sinking to 
inferior standards. 2 The thoughts of men are 
rectified, moralized and increasingly spiritualized 
along the line of progressive development. Why 
did not the religion of Israel "sink to the level 
of common Semitic heathenism and perish like 
the religions of other Semitic peoples" except 
for the energizing and uplifting power which God 
gave to the great prophets in the Assyrian and 
Babylonian periods? In Israel we behold a 
unique phenomenon, prophecy not sporadic, 
occasional, and comparatively feeble, as among 
other peoples, but historic and continuous, an 
institution shaping the life of the nation. I 
know not where else to find a race and succession 
of moral reformers of such lofty stature, com- 
bining "a message for the present, a body of 
truth for all time, and a foregleam of the eternal 
future." 

1 know that the objection is occasionally 
offered that the coarse strength of the prophetic 
word often unfits it for us. When the complaint 
is made by fastidious men that the Scriptures 
are not always adapted to the spiritual refine- 
ment and sensitiveness of our time, the proper 
answer is "By their fruits ye shall know them." 
The Bible faces things as they are in a world 
gone wrong, and as the scenes in human life are 

2 Appendix, Lecture IV, Note 2. 



THE UNIVERSAL BOOK. 183 

not arranged with the elegant luxury of a French 
salon, where every object attracts and pleases 
the sensitive and critical eye, so the Bible, the 
Book of Life, is not a dilettante's book. It 
presents many things that are common, ugly 
and terrible, and uses the plain language, the 
straightforward speech of the simple ages of 
mankind. It aims not to flatter the drawing- 
room fastidiousness, which cares for words rather 
rather than for things, and is more shocked by a 
breach of conventional etiquette than by the 
breaking of the statutes of Mount Sinai. Speak- 
ing of those works which are vulgarly called 
coarse, Hamerton once wrote: "The combination 
of the highest mental refinement with some 
roughness of material accompaniment, is as 
natural as that other very common combination 
of perfect visible finish with low intellectual cul- 
ture." Surely we perceive the truth of this in 
our observations of men. It is true with litera- 
ture, as witnessed in Dante and Shakespeare. 
It is true in the Bible, whose refinement is not a 
superficial polish, but the inner light of holiness. 
The Bible is an honest book, reflecting the ages 
when it was written, and recording the crimes and 
errors of its own heroes. If it is compelled to 
paint the vices of men, it makes them appear 
unlovely. It does not set out, like Hogarth, to 
depict the sins of mankind, but when sins are 
painted they are brought out, in honest Ho- 
garth's way, so as to repel and never to attract. 



184 CHRISTIANITY, THE WORLD-RELIGION. 

What an unspeakable difference between all this 
and the classic and other poetry which relates the 
immoral escapades of gods and demi-gods ! 

Max Muller has drawn attention to the fact 
that in the sacred books of the East by the side 
of so much that is "fresh, natural, simple, beau- 
tiful, and true," is so much that seems to him 
"not only unmeaning, artificial, and silly, but 
even hideous and repellent." But surely, we 
who hold that to our Scriptures were given a 
peculiar inspiration and final authority over the 
human spirit have no difficulty in suggesting an 
explanation of this phenomenon. We find in 
our sacred literature the main stem or stream of 
God's self-revelation and we do not expect to 
discover in those national religious developments 
which are only auxiliary to it or a preparation 
for it, such continuous energy, such ethical prog- 
ress and purity of moral life. 

We believe that man is a being capable of 
receiving such a divine revelation as was given 
to Israel ; we believe that man needed such a dis- 
closure from heaven, not to teach him the 
secrets of chemistry and zoology, not to unveil 
the mysteries of light and electricity, but to 
assure him that God is love, that God has 
mercy, and that God has provided a home for 
His children beyond the tomb. We believe that 
the claim, contained in the Scriptures, that their 
origin is supernatural, is justified by the un- 
paralleled moral dignity of Christ, who laid His 



THE UNIVERSAL BOOK. 185 

hand in divine authentication upon the Old 
Testament, and is Himself the life and sub- 
stance of the New; we are encouraged in our 
faith by the moral results which have followed 
the reception of this Book as the Word of Life; 
we believe that the Bible has upon it a stamp 
from above, a supernatural seal, especially in the 
evangelical history which gives us the life, death, 
and resurrection of Jesus Christ; we believe that 
there runs through this Book a stream of pre- 
diction, which, drawing our conclusions from the 
fulfillments already made, as for example from 
that conspicuous and ever present illustration, 
the Jewish people, could have had no other 
origin than the mind of God Himself. 

When we say that the Scriptures are from 
God, we certainly do not mean that they came 
to earth as an aerolite which dropped from an- 
other sphere. The Book is thoroughly human 
as well as truly divine ; God spake through the 
prophets as well as to them ; they preserve their 
natural differences and the Book is man's record 
of God's revelation. That record has its human 
peculiarities and limitations, by which it is more 
perfectly adapted to our needs. But there are 
in the Book elements of such dignity, truth, au- 
thority, power, universality of application, unity 
most marvelous in the midst of diversity most 
conspicuous as to set it apart from and above all 
other writings. Even if you could prove that 
the authors of the Scriptures had made mistakes 



1 86 CHRISTIANITT, THE WORLD-RELIGION. 

in zoology and chronology, you would not de- 
stroy the supreme value or stain the peerless 
splendor of our Bible. A signboard that points 
the traveler with unerring certainty toward vir- 
tue and heaven, is the most precious thing on 
earth, even if should you discover that it had 
been erected by unscientific hands and painted 
by unskilled fingers. Those devout literary 
critics whose investigations are now stirring so 
much eager controversy, find the Bible not less 
but greater, not weaker but stronger, more in- 
tensely human and more truly divine than be- 
fore. Enthusiasm for the Scriptures will not be 
lessened by the results of devout criticism. 
Martin Luther did not intend to bind men as 
slaves to the letter of the Scriptures, nor to any 
theory of their literal infallibility in every minor 
particular. The doctrine which the brilliant 
Professor Huxley approved in the champions of 
the Scriptures, the teaching that the least error 
in the most unimportant matter of science or 
history is inconsistent with a true theory of in- 
spiration and is subversive of the Bible; the un- 
tenable claim, against which he loved to couch 
his lance and which binds our hopes of salvation 
to the absolute accuracy of the itinerary of 
Israel's wanderings through the wilderness, is 
more of a hinderance than a help in the present 
generation. The Bible is not the Christian's 
dictator, but his gracious illumination, his wise, 
gentle and sufficient guide. It does not dwarf 



THE UNIVERSAL BOOK. 187 

the powers of humanity and thwart its develop- 
ment by taking away the stimulus to energetic 
work which is furnished by the exhaustless 
domain of explored truth. It does not cripple 
those faculties whose life is in their activity, or 
bid men to stultify reason. We might question 
a book which when all nature was saying to 
man, ''Examine, explore, search, conquer," 
lifted up its voice, and said, "Vain and needless 
labor. Open my pages; all truth is here." But 
what does this volume say? "The fear of the 
Lord is the beginning of wisdom, and to depart 
from evil is understanding." The Bible is a 
witness to this fundamental truth, and while its 
store is so rich that poet and statesman and phi- 
losopher may find in its golden treasury much 
that is of priceless worth, still the Word of God 
is primarily a Book of Religion ; it reaches down 
far below and rises far above all other knowl- 
edge. It appeals to the innermost nature of 
man, and when human wisdom has confessed, as 
Solomon did and Goethe has done, that all is 
vanity and vexation of spirit, it enters the heart 
like a torch into a darkened cavern. "The en- 
trance of Thy word giveth light;" by it men are 
brought back to the Supreme Truth around 
which, like the wandering globes around the sun, 
all other truths revolve. The law of the Lord is 
perfect, restoring the soul. 

All men need a perfect moral standard. Ex- 
amine the Ten Commandments given in the 



1 88 CHRISTIANITY, THE WORLD-RELIGION. 

dawn of recorded history; see there a divine 
hand smiting down idolatry with all its accom- 
panying degradations. 3 See there a divine hand 
building up the institution of the family. See 
there God's thought of purity and of the sacred- 
ness of life and of possessions; see there the 
divine idea of truth, of regard for human rights, 
and then open the New Testament and read the 
Sermon on the Mount, the fulfilling of the old 
Law, and then put to yourself the question: 
"Can I discover elsewhere so perfect a standard? 
Can I find a moral legislation which covers so 
mercifully and completely all human life?" I 
look around the world, and discover that wher- 
ever this Book has gone, men, though clinging 
to other scriptures, have been awakened out of 
moral lethargy — they have felt themselves at 
once challenged and condemned, even though 
they hold in their hands the scattered gems of 
ethical and spiritual truth which gleam from 
other sacred books than the Christian. 4 Where, 
outside of the area which is blessed by the Bible, 
will you find true honor and high privilege 
granted to womanhood? The greatest of all 
emancipations, that by which the Christian ideals 
of the family have superseded the non-Chris- 
tian, whether savage or civilized, is co-extensive 
with the influence of the Christian Scriptures. 
I might tell the story of what this Book has done 

3 Appendix, Lecture IV, Note 3. 

4 Appendix, Lecture IV, Note 4. 



THE UNIVERSAL BOOK. 189 

for the souls of women: how in Zululand, girls 
who were to be exchanged for cattle have 
learned that they were bought by the precious 
blood of Jesus Christ, always and everywhere 
the friend and helper of womankind ; how in 
Syria, those who had been left in mental and 
moral babyhood have learned from the New 
Testament the liberating truths of the Gospel; 
how in Japan, the daughter, who, for the sake of 
her parents, has sold herself to shame, and is 
made the theme of many a praiseful story — 
where "no one ever thinks of questioning the 
right of a parent to make this sale any more 
than he would allow a daughter to rebel against 
it" — has learned from Mary's Son that there is 
earthly and heavenly enfranchisement for her; 
how in China, where, from the cradle to the 
grave, her life is one long-drawn woe, whose 
great teacher never thought of remedying misery 
by delivering woman from polygamy and social 
inferiority; and in India, 5 where often the sor- 
rows of her lot in enforced widowhood, would 
melt any heart not dead to generous feeling — in 
India, where hundreds of non-Christian social 
reformers have at last risen up to fight the con- 
secrated cruelty, old at least as the laws of Manu, 
— woman is finding the Bible an emancipator 
which, while breaking the chains of earthly 
bondage lifts her imprisoned soul to heights and 
hopes beyond the stars. When her children 
5 Appendix, Lecture IV, Note 5. 



190 CHRISTIANITY, THE WORLD-RELIGION. 

expire in her arms, or are torn from her love to 
be murdered, as in China, and that grief which 
makes many a little grave so sacred wrings her 
heart, she is not left to mourn in utter desolate- 
ness of spirit, for she has heard of One who 
loves and shepherds her lost lambs in fields 
Elysian, and declares that of such is the king- 
dom of heaven. 

What a wondrous ennobling power this Book 
has had over all willing to receive it ! What we 
call Puritanism was one of the greatest efforts 
ever made to get the Bible enshrined into social 
law and national habits, and to it are due the 
liberty and purity of English-speaking nations. 
Even conservative Oxford, from her chair of his- 
tory, has said that England's progress for two 
hundred years on its moral and spiritual side, 
was due to Puritanism. The idolatrous Mala- 
gasy gets the Bible into his heart and suffers 
death by torture rather than surrender it or h?s 
faith in it. Professor Drummond goes to Africa, 
and finds illustrations of Christian character 
among newly-converted believers in God's Word 
which appear to him among the finest in the 
world. A native preacher, holding up a copy of 
the Scriptures before some of the Christian in- 
habitants of the South Sea Islands, exclaims 
"This is my resolve: the dust shall never cover 
my Bible, the moth shall never eat it, the mil- 
dew shall never rot it, my light and my joy." 
And late in his life, the all-accomplished poet 



THE UNIVERSAL BOOK. 191 

and philosopher, Coleridge, who had ranged so 
widely through literature, withdrew from his 
usual studies and took with him in his travels 
only a small English New Testament, saying to 
his friends "I have only one Book, and that is 
the best." 

But we may believe with Ewald that "in the 
New Testament is all the wisdom of the world," 
and with Sir William Jones that "in the Bible 
are more true sublimity, more exquisite beauty, 
more pure morality, more important history and 
finer strains of poetry and eloquence than can be 
collected from all other books, in whatever age 
or language they may have been written, " and 
yet not discover that the chief secret of the Bible 
is not truth, so much as life, or rather life through 
the medium of truth. It appears to possess or 
to be accompanied by a divine energy working 
unparalleled miracles. Even sceptics are im- 
pressed by it. One who sees no difference worth 
mentioning between the theology of Christ and 
the theology of Mohammed, wrote not long since 
in the Fortnightly Review: ' ' Look at what Chris- 
tian missionaries have done in the Pacific 
Islands, New Guinea, and Madagascar. In that 
latter island British evangelists really fought out 
the battle of civilization without costing a penny 
or a drop of blood to any European government. 
The same work is in its inception in the center 
of Africa. Who first put steamers on Lakes 
Tanganyika and Nyassa? Who first explored 



192 CHRISTIANITY, THE WORLD-RELIGION. 

the great affluents of the Congo? A little 
steamer of the Baptist Mission Society." This 
materialist has no sympathy with the motive 
forces which are back of Christian missions, but 
as a political economist he is glad in the interests 
of education and civilization to encourage the 
work of a Biblical Christianity. "China and 
Japan may send delegations to America to study 
our ways and take back the force of our institu- 
tions and models of our industries, but one mis- 
sionary will do more to start the living currents 
of civilization than all the delegations, simply 
because he begins further back in his teachings 
and awakens conscience and the sense of self- 
hood and the dignity of human nature. He 
goes to a nation, with the Bible in his hand, a 
simple and pathetic figure, less than a drop in 
the ocean; but he sinks in the depths only to 
reappear in some other form — the Bible has 
grown into a charter of freedom and of true 
national life. He seems to be doing little, but 
like the Norse god, who drained his drinking 
horn, and lo! the sea was narrowed, he often 
finds himself, in the midst of results miraculous 
and great." Always and everywhere the Bible 
brings life; its principles, which are universal, 
touch the springs of love and hope and fear, 
and are in the greatest contrast with any system 
which "fills the whole course of life with 
punctilious minutiae of observances." 

Englishmen and Americans are racially akin 



THE UNIVERSAL BOOK. 193 

to the men who wrote the Vedas and drew out 
those astounding compositions, the philosophical 
treatises of the Upanishads, but we have found 
our Bible in the writings of another race; it 
comes to us not through Aryan but through 
Semitic prophets and apostles. And I know not 
how to set forth the supremacy, the vigor, and 
the predestined universalism of the Bible so 
effectively as by pointing to its majestic work 
in moulding the English-speaking nationalities. 
In the American Republic, humanity, according 
to Professor Bryce, has reached the highest 
level, not only of material well-being, but of in- 
telligence and happiness which the race has yet 
attained. Within a hundred years, according to 
Mr. Lowell's prophecy, this will. become "the 
most powerful and prosperous community ever 
devised and developed by man." But it is his- 
torically certain that America was "born of the 
Bible." From it came, in the sixteenth cen- 
tury, the strongest impulses which colonized her 
shores. Out of Biblical precepts, and especially 
out of New Testament examples, sprang the 
simpler forms of self-government in town and 
church, which have gone with civilization in its 
westward march. From the Bible came the 
Christian teaching which exalted man above the 
state. From it came the observance of the 
Lord's day, the bulwark of our freedom, "the 
core of our civilization," and from it came the 
teaching of spiritual truth to the young, which 



194 CHRISTIANITY, THE WORLD-RELIGION. 

"has done more to preserve liberty than grave 
statesmen and armed soldiers." The Bible was 
the first Book which the types of Gutenberg ever 
printed, and that Book is the foundation of the 
educational system of the New World. From it 
came its public schools, and more than three 
hundred Christian colleges, stretching from the 
elms of Cambridge to the great lakes, and far 
over prairie and mountain to where "the haunted 
waves of Asia die on the shore of the world-wide 
sea." From the Bible came the better elements 
of our national institutions. It was an echo of 
the Scriptures that Jefferson sounded in the 
teaching that all men are created equal in their 
right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of life's best 
good. From the Bible has come the salt of 
righteousness which has thus far withstood the 
wastings of corruption. 

In America has the Word of God had a free 
field for its divine energies. And it is vastly 
significant, and the fact ought to be blown by 
trumpet-voices to the ends of the earth that the 
progress of Biblical Christianity in America, in 
spite of the forces of materialism and the sudden 
inrush of all nationalities, has been far greater 
than the unparalleled increase of population. 
Opening the pages of the recent national census, 
we learn that there are more than twenty millions 
of church communicants in the United States of 
America, and that according to Dr. Carroll, the 
careful superintendent of the Department of 



THE UNIVERSAL BOOK. 195 

Churches, the Christian population numbers 
nearly fifty-seven millions, leaving only five mil- 
lions belonging to the non-religious and anti- 
religious classes. We learn that while the popu- 
lation increased twenty-four per cent, between 
1880 and 1890, the communicants in the churches 
increased over forty-two per cent., and, as in- 
dicating the swifter gowth and ampler conquests 
of those churches which regard the Bible as a 
supernatural revelation, designed to be authori- 
tative over all men, may be mentioned the fact, 
that the evangelical communicants in the United 
States are to the non-evangelical as one hundred 
and three to one. The Church in America "is 
devoted to the temporal and eternal interests of 
mankind. Every corner-stone it lays, it lays 
for humanity, every altar it establishes, it estab- 
lishes for the salvation of souls. What is there 
in the world to compare with the Church in its 
power to educate, elevate and civilize mankind?" 
Those Christian believers who hold the Bible 
in their hands are making the most extensive 
conquests to-day in the field which is the world. 
The victorious march of a Biblical Christianity 
seems predicted by such signs as these : that the 
English language is now used in part by more 
than one hundred millions of people, that the 
nations speaking the Teutonic tongues are in- 
creasing, and that forty-two million square miles 
of the land-surface of the globe are to-day 
guarded by Christian powers. 



196 CHRISTIANITY, THE WORLD-RELIGION. 

No movement of the century has been more 
significant than the wide extension of the En- 
glish-speaking peoples. Christian England has 
not failed to make her Biblical faith a beneficent 
power wherever her wide commerce has ex- 
tended. When we go beyond the British Islands 
to the greater Britain of her colossal possessions, 
and watch the course of Christian advance in the 
many lands over which waves the red-cross flag ; 
when we note the ample domain of Canada, the 
new and wondrous world of Australia, the Eng- 
lish mission stations in every corner of the 
earth, and on the great islands of the sea; and 
especially when we study this mighty empire 
where, during the Victorian Era, according to 
Sir Bartle Frere, the "changes have been more 
important than those in modern Europe," we 
gain a new impression of the extent of that 
Biblical dominion, which seems likely to cover 
the earth. 6 It is certain that the English-speak- 
ing nations will soon control the destinies of 
mankind. England has seven flourishing states 
in Africa; and who can doubt, asks John Fiske, 
the American historian, "that the African Con- 
tinent will be occupied by a mighty nation of 
English descent, covered with populous cities 
and flourishing farms?" He points to New Zea- 
land, "with its climate of perpetual spring, where 
the English race is multiplying faster than any- 
where else in the world, unless it be in Texas 

•Appendix, Lecture IV, Note 6. 



THE UNIVERSAL BOOK. 197 

and Minnesota." In a century and a half the 
population in North America will reach seven 
hundred millions. English colonies will occupy 
the vast Oceanic, African, Indian worlds, and 
the day is at hand when the great majority of 
the human race will trace their pedigree to Eng- 
lish forefathers. Are not these tremendous 
facts a prophecy that the coming man is likely 
to read his books, not in two hundred languages, 
but in the tongue of Bacon and Bunyan, of 
Burke and Webster; and have we not here a 
prophecy, confirmatory of all else that we have 
discovered, that the coming man will find his 
sacred literature in those Scriptures which " prin- 
cipally teach what man is to believe concerning 
God and what duty God requires of man?" 

When Queen Victoria, on the fiftieth anniver- 
sary of her coronation, walked the aisles of West- 
minster Abbey, she crossed the grave of Living- 
stone, on which are inscribed the words of Christ, 
"Other sheep I have which are not of this fold." 
These words on that heroic grave are surely a 
sweet great prophecy of the gathering of all na- 
tions beneath one spiritual banner. Of that 
majestic kingdom whose outlines already appear, 
the Universal Book is the harbinger, symbol, 
and moulding power, more luminous, attractive, 
and divine, than our present imperfect and 
divided Christendom. With that Book we go to 
the Moslem and recall to him that his own Koran 
pays high and unstinted homage to the Old and 



190 CHRISTIANITY, THE WORLD-RELIGION. 

New Testaments as the Word of God. With 
that Book we shall go to China, and holding up 
a standard which accords with her best political 
and social ideals, shall reveal to her tough-fibered 
people the true King of Heaven. With that 
Book we come to India, and, not denying her 
own deepest doctrine, the omnipenetrativeness 
of the Deity, declare the God who was in Christ, 
the incarnate and atoning Redeemer, reconciling 
the world unto Himself. With that Book we 
shall come to all who linger in the twilight of 
Asia, and flash from these pages the Light of 
the World — until, through the Universal Book, 
men shall see the Universal Man and Saviour, 
and shall be brought into harmony with proph- 
ets, apostles, martyrs, who have kept the say- 
ings of this Book, and now stand robed in white, 
before Him whom John saw with vesture dipped 
in blood, whose name is called The Word of 
God. 



THE UNIVERSAL MAN AND SAVIOUR, 



The truth of the Incarnation, the reality of the intro- 
duction of the mind of God into the world in the conscious- 
ness of Jesus, is the creative source of all theology. — The 
Christ of To-day, Gordon, p. 175. 

Das Hochste, was man auf diesem Gebiete denken 
kann, ware eine menschliche Personlichkeit, welche mit 
ihrem ganzen Wesen und Erleben selbst zum vollen und 
klaren Ausdrucke des Willens Gottes mit den Menschen 
wiirde. — Christliche Apologetik von Dr. Herm. Schultz, 
p. 21. 

The confession of the divinity of our Lord is the asser- 
tion that all the scattered rays of light which shine in the 
world are gathered up in Him and radiate from Him again. 
— The World as the Subject of Redemption, W. H. Fre- 
mantle, p. 22. 

We may, therefore, say that the basis of the thought of 
Jesus is the consciousness that good is omnipotent; that 
what the soul of man recognizes as the highest ideal is at 
the same time the deepest reality of the world; and that 
man is not merely the creature but the son of God. — The 
Evolution of Religion, Vol. II, p. 139, Edward Caird. 

But it is only of One that we know that he united the 
deepest humility and a purity of will with the claim that He 
was more than all the prophets who were before Him: the 
Son of God. Of Him alone we know that those who ate and 
drank with Him, glorified Him not only as their Teacher, 
Prophet and King, but also as the Prince of Life, as the 
Redeemer and Judge of the world. — Christianity and History, 
Adolf Harnack, p. 37. 



FIFTH LECTURE. 

THE UNIVERSAL MAN AND SAVIOUR. 

I am simply speaking demonstrable fact when 
I say that the one magnetic center in the world 
of thought and religion to-day is Jesus Christ. 
This course of Lectures has brought us to a 
theme before which I might well keep silent, 
acknowledging what I profoundly feel, the utter 
inadequacy of any speech which I am able to 
offer. I have endeavored to set forth the Uni- 
versal Aspects of Christianity, as indicating its 
ultimate universal acceptance. I have shown 
some of the World-wide Effects of Christianity, 
which point to its rightful supremacy and world- 
wide prevalence. We have seen in Christian 
Theism a basis for a Universal Religion, and have 
considered together the Universal Book. It is 
surely appropriate that we should compare Chris- 
tianity with the ethnic and the would-be-uni- 
versal faiths. It is appropriate, also, that we 
should place the Christian Bible by the side of the 
other sacred Scriptures. But we advance to-day 
a step further and a step higher. Christendom 
is great and wonderful, but Christ is infinitely 
greater. Matched with Him, the best golden 



202 CHRISTIANITY, THE WORLD-RELIGION. 

acres of His kingdom are as moonlight unto sun- 
light. The Bible is surpassingly great, but He 
is the Light which flashes from its pages. He 
is the priceless pearl within its sacred casket. 
The Bible has well been called only "the Chris- 
tian's score-book, while Christ Himself is our 
song, concrete, vital, expressive, rhythmic, uni- 
versal." And while we may compare the sacred 
books of the world with each other, the believer 
in Christ shrinks back almost from naming his 
Saviour and King, even in the august company 
of the founders of other religions. We may 
compare Moses, Zoroaster, Socrates, Confucius, 
Buddha, Mohammed, among themselves, and with 
a long list of other great personages ; but when 
we mention before a company of Christians the 
name of Jesus Christ, who for them has the 
spiritual significance of God, we feel that wor- 
ship supplants criticism and comparison, and that 
an act of homage in praiseful hymn or grateful 
prayer is the first commanding duty. 

We have now arrived at what is essential in 
Christianity and what is most distinctive. Chris- 
tianity is Christ. More and more it is identified 
with its Founder, and the preservation of His 
life as the supreme historical reality is the final 
vindication of the Christian religion. If men ask 
us what is the substance of the Christian belief, 
we point them to Christ, as predicted by the 
prophets, as disclosed in the Gospels, as inter- 
preted by the Epistles, and as living to-day in 



THE UNIVERSAL MAN. 203 

the hearts of His people. He is the Alpha and 
the Omega, the beginning, middle, and end of 
Christian faith. To the believer He is the Mar- 
vel, the Mystery, the Glory, the Explanation of 
the world, standing out singular, unique, alone. 
He sustains the most opposite characters as the 
Sufferer and the Sovereign, the despised of men 
and the adored of angels, the Victim and the 
King, the Stone of Stumbling, and the Bright 
and Morning Star, the Child of Mary, the Son 
of God. The greatest poetry and a golden treas- 
ury of holy hymns have been laid at His feet. 
There is no form or degree of love which He has 
not touched. Where else will you find a love 
which covers and absorbs the whole of life like 
that which Jesus has called forth? The love 
which is born of gratitude He certainly has in- 
spired; the love which is linked with perfect 
admiration He surely has commanded ; the love 
which delights to pour itself out in lyric ecstacy, 
the love which is filled with pitiful sorrow for 
great suffering, the love which bows in adora- 
tion, the love which inspires men to endure hard- 
ships, traverse oceans, brave dangers from savage 
tribes and wasting pestilence, submit to shame 
and despise death in its direst forms: all these 
manifestations of love appear like a band of radi- 
ant angels about the Christ. This love to Him 
has given joy to a faith which persecution could 
not conquer and has produced those tender con- 
fidences between the soul and its Saviour which 



204 CHRISTIANITY, THE WORLD-RELIGION. 

have marked the lives of some of the wisest and 
sweetest of our race. It beat with strong pulses 
through the mighty, generous, and oft-burdened 
heart of Martin Luther; it was a tender under- 
song beneath the stern life and iron theology of 
John Calvin; it is the ever-burning lamp over- 
hanging the feast of heaven which Thomas a 
Kempis sets before us in his Imitation of Christ. 
The great epic poet of England was sustained by 
it in all the sorrows that covered him, and it 
burns, not only in the stately grandeur of his 
poetry, but through the equal majesty of his 
prose. This is the love which explains the joy 
of the missionary and the martyr, and which 
forbade and prevented the betrayal of Jesus in 
the persecuted Christian of Madagascar, who 
saw his wife and brethren and children bound 
and thrown down the rocks, and who bravely 
followed them to death in a sublime confession. 
This love gladdened the heart of the all-accom- 
plished Van der Kemp amid the degraded Hot- 
tentots ; it moved the soul of Henry Martyn in 
his life of heroic sacrifice ; it cheered the weary 
labors of the American scholars who gave the 
Arabic Bible to the race of Mohammed ; it was 
the inspiration of Neander, as with incredible 
toil, he unrolled anew the past record of the 
Church ; it comforted the great heart of Dorner 
as, in his History of the Doctrine of the Person 
of Christ, he traced through the centuries the 
manifold and majestic impression which His 



THE UNIVERSAL MAN. 205 

august personality has made upon men. But 
while He enkindles the heart, He equally 
illumines the mind of the believer, who per- 
ceives in Him the goal of prophecy and the 
turning point of History. In Correggio's pic- 
ture of the Infancy the light streams from the 
face of the new-born King in the lowly stable, 
and Christian faith beholds in it the light of 
love and truth, and hope, and Messianic ex- 
pectation that illumined the sad pathway lead- 
ing the exiles of Eden out of the lost Paradise. 
It was the radiance which brought comfort to 
the Father of the Faithful in the supreme moment 
of his life; it was the pillar of light which led 
Israel out of Egypt ; it was the gleam of hope 
which shone amid the altar fires of tabernacle 
and temple ; it was the splendor which appeared 
on the breast-plate of Aaron, the high priest, 
and the crown of David, the king; it was the 
stellar glory which illumined the souls of proph- 
ets, becoming at last the rounded fullness of the 
Sun of Righteousness; it was the light which, 
five centuries before Bethlehem cradled the 
King, had illumined the soul of the Indian prince 
Siddartha, who may be classed among those 
prophets that dimly saw what was yet to fill all 
the world with its gracious illumination. 

And Christian faith has seen, in the coming of 
the Christ, the starting-point of the world's 
greater history. He appeared at a time when 
peace covered the nations, and there seemed to 



206 CHRISTIANITT, THE WORLD-RELIGION. 

be a pause in the on-goings of humanity, when 
His own people were helpless and craving a 
Deliverer, smitten from without and torn from 
within. They had scattered their synagogues 
over the Roman Empire, little dreaming that in 
them the messengers of Jesus of Nazareth were 
to find their first listeners to the glad tidings of 
a Messiah come. As little did the Romans im- 
agine that along the military roads which they 
had stretched from land to land, the ambassa- 
dors of the Prince of the House of David were to 
herald a new Kingdom, which should eclipse 
and outlast the monarchy of the Caesars. Just 
as little did the disciples of Greek learning, who 
in that age were found in all the great cities 
of the East, dream that their language was to 
be the vehicle of a literature coming from Judea, 
which was to rival the riches of their own phi- 
losophers, and was to ultimately become intelli- 
gible and life-giving to a thousand tribes of the 
children of men; a literature to which all the 
chief intellectual luminaries of eighteen hundred 
years should repair, from its founts of holy 
splendor filling their golden urns. " Speaking 
the tongue of Homer and of Plato, the Jewish 
preachers of a universal Christian Redemption, 
made their way along the undeviating roads by 
which the Roman legionaries had made straight 
in the desert a highway for our God." There 
are no accidents in history. A wondrous time 
matched and fitted the coming of Him who is 



THE UNIVERSAL MAN. 207 

the wonder of all time. Standing to-day in His 
light which streams all around us, we feel 
that no mortal can with Him compare among 
the sons of men. He sustains different relations 
to the Christian spirit from those sustained by 
the founders of other religions to their disciples. 
Men who are guilt-smitten and tortured with 
agony, are quieted and transformed by His 
Name and Word. Moses never stood, or 
claimed to stand, on any celestial height. Bud- 
dha and Confucius may be ranked with saints 
and sages, and Mohammed may be deemed a 
prophet who clearly saw the unity of. God, but 
the world, as it seems to the Christian, has only 
one Saviour, who brings the same hopes, fashions 
the same characters, commands the same grateful 
homage among nations as remote from each 
other as the Greenlanders and the native Aus- 
tralians, the dwellers by the Oregon and the 
dwellers by the Ganges; as distant in time as 
those who assembled in an upper room in old 
Jerusalem from those who sing His praises to- 
day in stately cathedrals or the barracks of the 
Salvation Army. 

We may say of Him, that He is the strength 
and substance of the religion bearing His name. 
We cannot say of Mohammedanism that it is 
Mohammed, though he is certainly a part of it, 
the temporary strength, and, as we believe, the 
ultimate disintegration of it as a system. We 
cannot say of Buddhism that it is Gautama Bud- 



208 CHRISTIANITY, THE WORLD-RELIGION. 

dha, for not only does that protean faith recog- 
nize many Buddhas, but even in the beginning 
it was ''Nirvana and the Law," rather than the 
gentle saint himself that his loving disciples 
preached. Hinduism is associated with the 
names of poets, saints, reformers, none of them 
supreme and all-inclusive. We cannot say of 
Confucianism that it is Confucius, for the 
Chinese sage was a scribe and historian of the 
ancients, a transmitter, and not a creator. While 
he represents China, and is venerated by millions, 
and while temples are dedicated and sandal-wood 
papers are burned to him in every Chinese city, 
he is the symbol rather than the ever-living em- 
bodiment of the faith which he taught. But in 
Jesus Christ His followers find the truth person- 
alized, knowing whom they know God, man, 
atonement, resurrection, redemption, immor- 
tality. Our creed is not merely Christ's sermons 
and parables, not merely what Jesus said, but 
also what He was and did. The teaching of 
Christ, which is adequate, holds up His radiant 
person, sets forth His matchless utterances, and 
relates the story of His life, death, and resurrec- 
tion; it proclaims what Jesus was, what Jesus 
said, what Jesus did. In the first we have 
theology, in the second we have ethics, in the 
third we have the Gospel, and in all together we 
have salvation for the individual and for man- 
kind. He is the living embodied truth, the 
knowledge of whom is eternal life. Men have 



THE UNIVERSAL MAN. 209 

formulated masterly statements regarding Him, 
but He is larger than our creeds, and He has 
the life-giving quality possessed by no formula 
however true. Such, according to Christian 
faith, is the personality whom I shall endeavor 
to set forth as the universal Man and Saviour. 

That Christianity is the World-Religion has 
been argued in the previous lectures on the 
various grounds on which thus far we have 
stood. But now I summon your thought to the 
claim that Christianity alone presents in its 
Founder and Central Personage the Universal 
Man and Redeemer, who meets at once the 
need, the temper, the intellectual and the spir- 
itual demands of all peoples. He rules, as we 
know, the occidental nations, but He is no more 
occidental than oriental; the East may claim 
him as well as the West. We remember how 
Keshub Chunder Sen, in his lectures, rejoiced 
that Jesus Christ was an Asiatic, that His dis- 
ciples were Asiatics, that all the agencies pri- 
marily employed for the propagation of the Gos- 
pel were Asiatic, that "in Christ we see not only 
the exaltedness of humanity, but also the grand- 
eur of which Asiatic nature is susceptible. 1 "And 
we remember with what beautiful and loving 
sentences Mozoomdar has pictured the oriental 
Christ, the bathing, fasting, praying, teaching, 
healing, feasting, Prophet of Nazareth. When 
Jesus is received into the heart, He is as much 

1 Appendix, Lecture V, Note 1. 



2IO CHRISTIANITT, THE WORLD-RELIGION. 

at home in the Universities by the Ganges as in 
those by the Isis and the Cam, in the cities by 
the Indus and the Nile, as in those by the Hud- 
son and the Clyde. We cannot think of a west- 
ern Mohammed. We can hardly think of a 
western Buddha, but you discover nothing local 
or provincial about Jesus Christ. It makes not 
the least difference where men preach His Gos- 
pel: to the most cultivated Europeans or the 
most barbarous Africans, to the thoughtful 
Hindus or to the North American savages, 
among the naked Hottentots or among the fur- 
clad Esquimaux; He finds a true home in the 
hearts of all who receive Him because He is the 
Universal Man, and even the three hundred 
names given Him in the Scriptures do not ex- 
haust His million-sided personality. 

We know very well that such a complex being 
as man requires a Saviour and Leader who shall 
answer to all his intellectual and moral needs. 
The Teuton requires a captain, a hero, in whom 
is every quality of heroic manliness and splendid 
leadership. The Asiatic demands a reasoner, an 
expounder of abstract truth who can formulate 
universal principles. Men whose minds are 
Greek in their intellectual aptitudes cannot be 
satisfied with a teacher who is not analytic, and 
I may add Socratic, in his methods. And there 
are poets in the world, in whom imagination is 
the central light of the soul, who commune with 
nature because they see in the outer world a 



THE UNIVERSAL MAN. 211 

reflex both of humanity and of divinity. Further- 
more, most that is good in human life is found 
in the family, in society, and the world needs a 
prophet who shall be familiar and friendly and 
sympathetic, who shall bless the little children, 
and share the wedding feast, and stand with 
tear-wet eyes at the open grave. The most 
familiar character on the stage of human life is 
the sufferer, who is conscious of sin and who is 
smitten with grief, and the perfect Man and 
Saviour must meet his innermost need. Christ 
alone is adequate to all these demands. 

As we open the Gospels, and read the words 
of Jesus therein recorded, we discover in them a 
body of wisdom, the loftiest in spirit, the most 
astonishing in their completeness, and the 
calmest in their absolute assurance of authority 
which the world possesses. These words fell 
from the lips of Jesus talking with fishermen, 
soldiers, women, Pharisees; and they seem the 
natural and easy expressions of One who was 
Himself greater than what He said, flakes of 
gold crumbling off from their very richness, 
sparks struck out by His contacts with men, 
snowy petals shaken by the breezes of discussion 
from the blossoming boughs of the tree of life, 
with a naturalness and ease like that of a virgin 
prairie covering itself in May-time with grass 
and flowers. A lawyer, feeling ill at ease by 
the reply of Jesus to his question, put to Him 
the inquiry, "Who is my neighbor?" And in- 



2 12 CHRISTIANITY, THE WORLD-RELIGION. 

stantly came forth from the lips of Christ the 
parable of the good Samaritan, and all literature 
furnishes nothing equal to this extemporised 
allegory by which Jesus rebuked the Pharisaic 
and cruel hypocrisy of His time and identified 
His cause with the most gracious humanities of 
all the future. No Hindu sage, or Greek 
logician, or Hebrew prophet, could possibly 
crave anything keener, more searching, more 
humbling, more inspiring. It illustrates a 
method of teaching that can never be provincial 
and can never become obsolete. This is one of 
those amazing parables by which He, who is 
confessedly the greatest of Teachers, brought 
His message home to the common, the universal 
mind. Whoever taught like this man? The 
simple, sublime, picturesque pedagogy of the 
Gospels has evoked the enthusiasm of the chief 
instructors of the race. 

In our Christian libraries we point to the 
wealth of sermonic literature which has been 
worth preserving, and which has been inspired 
by the Christ: the works of South and Jeremy 
Taylor, and Bunyan, and Whitfield, and Chal- 
mers, of Robert Hall and Robertson, of Bush- 
nell, and Spurgeon, and we say, "From these 
tomes we will show you miracles of eloquence 
and wisdom which you cannot rival in the mas- 
terpieces of the Senate and the Forum." But 
we who know the Christ, would no more think 
of comparing the best speeches of Cicero or' 



THE UNIVERSAL MAN. 213 

Burke with the Sermon on the Mount, than we 
should of comparing the fine jewelry of a king's 
diadem with the unwasting fires of the Milky 
Way. The printed sayings of Christ you can 
read in an hour, and if you ever take pains to 
go over them thoughtfully at one sittting, you 
may feel like a man permitted in some ethereal 
body to step from burning constellation to burn- 
ing constellation, round the whole infinite breadth 
of the Zodiac. 

But remember that the conversations of 
Jesus, containing all this wisdom, are not the 
hard-wrought elaborations which scholars admire 
in Walter Savage Landor; they are not the rea- 
sonings of the philosopher, collating, as Sir Wil- 
liam Hamilton did, the opinions of a thousand 
thinkers in a half score of languages, and slowly 
digesting the vast materials before offering the 
labored result to the criticism of mankind. They 
were spoken with the familiarity of the break- 
fast table, and yet with the authority of Mount 
Sinai. The free utterances of this Nazarene 
Prophet do not recall the frenzy of Elijah nor 
the ardor of Isaiah, who appear to us lifted by a 
divine breath greater than themselves. Still less 
do they remind us of the experiences of Mo- 
hammed, whose nervous system was overstrained, 
and whose struggles and agonies were accom- 
panied by delusions of the senses, before he came 
out into the calm assurance that he was a divine 
messenger commissioned to utter one specific 



214 CHRISTIANITY, THE WORLD-RELIGION. 

truth. Nor does Jesus remind us of Buddha, 
who, after long years of vain search, and many 
agonizing disappointments, at last gained the 
vision by which his life was thereafter attended. 
There is in Jesus a divine, self-contained calm- 
ness and sweet authority distinguishing Him 
from all others. And we find in Him, not what 
we discover in Aristotle and John Stuart Mill, 
thought and language welded together through 
disciplined thinking, for Jesus speaks rather with 
the fine free utterance of the poet whose vision 
of God is unclouded. 

If all men need a perfect teacher, one who has 
a perfect message which grows not antiquated, 
where else shall they discover him? 2 Does not 
Jesus meet the mental and spiritual needs of 
humanity both by the contents of His disclosure 
and the method of His speech? Let no one be 
eager to mention Buddha as a possible rival, for 
Buddha was blind to that truth which glowed 
ever in the heart of Christ, the Fatherhood of 
God. And Jesus not only taught the divine 
Fatherhood, but He made God real to men, not 
merely by words spoken about God, but by tak- 
ing the veil, as it were, from the face of the 
Father, and showing us God in Himself. He 
taught that obedience is the one principle in the 
universe which makes for life and peace; He 
taught that men must get into harmony with the 
moral law. So far as his teaching was ethical, 

2 Appendix, Lecture V, Note 2. 



THE UNIVERSAL MAN. 215 

it reached down to the centre of human char- 
acter, demanding truth in the inner parts, not 
compromising with any darling sin, as did Mo- 
hammed, leaving us satisfied with no fragmentary 
virtues, as Confucius did ; and confessing no 
agnosticism with regard to the power that rules 
in heaven ; exalting humility, enthroning meek- 
ness, laying its benedictory hand on aspirations 
after holiness, holding out promises to the mer- 
ciful ; placing a diadem on the spirit of martyr- 
dom, searching out the hiding places of the 
hypocrite, rebuking the spirit of display in alms- 
giving and the habit of meaningless repetition in 
prayer, lifting the earthly life heavenward, teach- 
ing a supreme trust in the Father's goodness and 
personal care, magnifying the duty of brotherly 
kindness on earth, and yet pointing to rewards 
and sufferings in the life beyond as supreme 
objects of human thought and fear. 

Think of the pulpits in which Christ spoke, 
and gain a new sense of His adaptations to all 
human life. To no seated congregation, under 
no one roof, were His divine discourses given to 
men. He seized the occasions as they came to 
Him, now on the sea-beach of Gennesareth, call- 
ing His chosen disciples or instructing the multi- 
tude in a series of matchless parables ; now at 
Jacob's Well, conversing with an audience of 
one, and pouring into her mind the heavenliest 
truths concerning the Father's nature and the 
obligations of spiritual worship; now on the 



2l6 CHRISTIANITY, THE WORLD-RELIGION. 

mountain-top of Galilee, with the blue sky for a 
dome, the green earth for a carpet, and a mixed 
multitude for an audience, breathing over the 
attentive crowd such syllables of wisdom and 
tenderness as grateful hearts could not let die; 
now opening the Scriptures in the synagogues of 
Nazareth or Capernaum ; now standing in the 
courts of the temple and calling day after day 
to the multitudes at the feast of tabernacles; 
"If any man thirst, let him come unto Me and 
drink;" now speaking at the tomb of Lazarus 
those words which have enlightened the dark- 
ness of the grave; and, at last making a pulpit 
of His own cross of agony, from which His 
seven-fold utterances have floated down through 
time, to reveal to men His forgiving love, His 
filial affection, His entire humanity, the pain of 
His atoning sacrifice, and the completion of His 
atoning work. 

The words which He spake, into whatever 
lands they have gone, are still spirit and life. 
Our hungry minds find in Him a truth which is 
not a geometric proposition, a grammatical rule, 
a philosophical statement, a historical fact, or a 
scientific principle, but is truth ethical, person- 
alized, spiritual, radiant with divine light and 
love. The Beatitudes, pondered daily and heard 
in the silence of the spirit as the voice of Jesus 
speaking to us; the parable of the Lost Sheep; 
the story of the Lost Son ; the blessed invitation 
"Come unto Me"; the promises of eternal life; 



THE UNIVERSAL MAN. 217 

the words of ringing cheer, which still sound to 
His disciples like a mellow blast from an arch- 
angel's trumpet; the solemn parables of the final 
judgment; His sentences of inspiring command, 
bidding us go out of ourselves and tell the entire 
world about Him : these, taken home into the 
mind and conscience and affection, are still 
celestial food to the soul. Nurses in the hos- 
pital, like Dora Pattison, soldiers like Chinese 
Gordon on the eve of battle, girls at school learn- 
ing of sickness and sorrow at home, mothers 
looking into the cradles or coffins of infant chil- 
dren, tired men of business harassed with cares, 
scholars grown weary of the world of books, re- 
formers beset by angry wickedness, Christian 
preachers amid the suffering and crime of dark 
cities, have thus been made strong by com- 
munion with Jesus. And many of us will for- 
give Matthew Arnold for much imperfect and 
even ignoble criticism of the Church and the 
Bible, as we read again that best of his sonnets 
"East London," which seems to have been in- 
spired by the spoken words of Christ : — 

" 'Twas August, and the fierce sun overhead 
Smote on the squalid streets of Bethnal Green, 
And the pale weaver, through his window seen 
In Spitalfields, look'd thrice dispirited. 
I met a preacher there I knew, and said: 
'111 and o'erworked, how fare you in this scene?' 
'Bravely!" said he, " for I of late have been 
Much cheered with thoughts of Christ the living bread.' 
O human soul, as long as thou canst so 
Set up a mark of everlasting light 



2l8 CHRISTIANITT, THE WORLD-RELIGION. 

Above the howling senses' ebb and flow, 

To cheer thee, and to right thee if thou roam, 

Not with lost toil thou labourest through the night; 

Thou mak'st the Heaven thou hop'st indeed thy home." 

But when we rise above the qualities of Jesus 
as a teacher, and approach His moral nature, we 
have no apologies to offer like those with which 
Mohammedan scholars are obliged to defend the 
Arabian prophet. We have no limitations to 
concede, like the Israelite in his panegyric of 
Moses. We discover in Christ absolute freedom 
from the consciousness of sin, and stainless purity 
in an age when society was corrupt at both ends, 
when license and cruelty ruled in the multitude, 
and hypocritic formalism in the spiritual aris- 
tocracy of Judaism. He stands on a moral height 
quite above anything which other religions have 
to offer. "He stands as high above us as He 
did above His first disciples — a perfect Master, 
the supreme head of the fellowship of all true 
religion." I often think the greatest theological 
discovery of our generation, has been Jesus the 
Christ, by which I mean that many obstructions 
have been removed, many obscurities have 
been wiped away from the first Christian cen- 
tury, and some theological and other clouds have 
been dispelled, so that He stands above us in 
His solitary pre-eminence as perhaps He was 
never presented before to the minds of men. 
"He leads captive the civilized peoples; they 
accept His word as law, though they confess it a 
law higher than human nature likes to obey; 



THE UNIVERSAL MAN. 219 

they build Him churches, they worship Him, 
they praise Him in songs, interpret Him in phi- 
losophies and theologies ; and they deeply love 
for His sake." 

The tide of humanity, even according to the 
confessions of those who have striven to pluck 
from Him the crown of His divinity, has not 
since risen so high as it rose in Jesus Christ. 
"All admit, and joyfully admit," said Channing, 
"that Jesus, by His greatness and goodness, 
throws all other human attainments into ob- 
scurity." And even Strauss confessed of Him: 
"He remains the highest model of religion 
within the reach of our thought; and no per- 
fect piety is possible without His presence in the 
heart." Theodore Parker realized that no 
church has yet mastered His conceptions and 
fully comprehended and applied His methods. 
Now, I ask, does not human nature need a moral 
hero in whom men can implicitly trust, to whom 
they can give unreserved devotion, and who is 
an ever-living presence and power ?_ "Leadership 
was natural to Jesus. To make disciples He 
needed only to say, 'Follow me!' His will was 
resistless. Enemies could not override Him, 
Satan could not baffle Him, Death itself could 
not defeat Him. No experience, coming ever 
so suddenly, could disturb His balanced equi- 
poise. Standing alone against the world, there 
was majesty and supremacy in every attitude 
and aspect of His life." 



2 20 CHRISTIANITY, THE WORLD-RELIGION. 

I grant joyfully that there have been with 
many an immense inspiration and fascination in 
the personality of Gautama Buddha, in his self- 
sacrifice and gentleness, his calm wisdom, his 
long life of devotion. Like Confucius, he 
reached more than four-score years. We may 
agree with St. Hilaire that, excepting Christ 
only, there is no figure among the founders of 
religions more pure and touching than his. But 
who will say that Buddha is either proclaimed or 
believed in as a personal, inspiring presence now 
among the millions of Asia? "We are touching 
on no disputed point, when we assert that 
according to the Buddhist Scriptures the per- 
sonal, conscious life of the founder of that 
religion was extinguished in death." While I 
am grateful for the sweet spirit of him who 
threw away the splendors of royalty and traveled 
through India as a beggar, and did not shrink 
from the companionship of the poorest; while I 
bless God for the noble example of one who 
gave himself to the service of others, and who, 
I believe, will be numbered among those who, 
as Jesus said, "shall come from the east to sit 
down in the Kingdom of Heaven," still I know 
that Buddha is gone, and that no voice comes 
from him to the millions revering his name. 
But He who marches at the head of Christen- 
dom, travailing in the greatness of His strength 
is, according to Christian faith, and I may add, 



THE UNIVERSAL MAN. 221 

Christian experience, the living Christ, "the 
same yesterday, to-day, and forever." 

And He only, among all historic characters, 
can justly be said to have lived with no con- 
sciousness of moral unworthiness. When we 
consider the weakness and wickedness of human 
life, recall the universality of sin, reflect that no 
week passes with us, even when we are striving 
with the utmost prayerfulness after the highest, 
that we do not fall below our ideal ; when we 
consider what a record of imperfection, of one- 
sided development, of unbalanced attainment, 
is every human career that we know; when we 
remember how conscious of personal sinfulness 
the purest men have always been ; when we see 
such natures as those of Pascal and Jonathan 
Edwards scanning with angelic insight the Law of 
God, and trembling like an electrometer in a thun- 
der-storm, the moral wonder of this Galilean 
Peasant, who never uttered a prayer for forgive- 
ness, who never betrayed the faintest conscious- 
ness of imperfection or moral demerit, becomes 
more and more astounding. 

His freedom from sin was apparently not the 
result of prolonged and painful effort ; His vir- 
tues were not like ours, the hard and finished 
products of discipline, restraint, asceticism, and 
sorrowful experience. We rise "on stepping- 
stones of our dead selves to higher things." 
We advance, as Paul did, by resolutely forget- 



222 CHRISTIANITY, THE WORLD-RELIGION. 

ting the errors and follies of the past, and press- 
ing with heroic determination onward toward the 
higher goal; but with Jesus we find no tears of 
penitence, no prayers for pardon, no betrayal of 
any suspicion of error or iniquity, for the past 
was never to Him a time for forgetfulness, but 
only for delightful remembrance. The Gospels 
give us one glimpse of it in the glory He had 
with the Father before the world was. "The 
most perfect unity reigns in His life; He ad- 
vances according to the circumstances in which 
He lived, but His change produces in Him no 
change in character or design ; everywhere he is 
animated by the same spirit." How different 
with Mohammed before and after his agonizing 
experiences in the cave and desert, and how 
different with Gautama Buddha before and after 
his great enlightenment beneath the Bo-tree in 
Gaya! 

Without self-seeking, in the age of Augustus 
and Tiberius Caesar; without the least taint of 
sensuality, when the world reeked with corrup- 
tion ; without falsehood, shortly before the 
Stoic emperor, Marcus Aurelius, declared that 
truth had taken flight from the earth; without 
injustice, in the midst of a Jewish legislation 
which, as perverted, defended many kinds of 
cruel inequality; unique not only when com- 
pared with all that went before, but when com- 
pared with all that followed Him ; manifestly in 
all things as Renan confessed, "superior to His 



THE UNIVERSAL MAN. 223 

disciples and not created by them;" on the one 
side of Him appearing John the Baptist, who 
declared himself unworthy to unloose His san- 
dals; and on the other side of Him the greatest 
of apostles, claiming nothing except what he ob- 
tained from Christ ; on the one side of Him in 
heathenism appearing the orator and statesman 
Cicero, declaring that a perfect sage he had 
never found, and on the other side the phi- 
losopher Seneca, who mournfully affirmed that 
innocence had fled away from the earth ; there 
rises in the midst of them all this young vil- 
lager, this incomparable man, this "purest 
among the mighty, and mightiest among the 
pure," whose pierced hand, as Paul Richter 
said, "has lifted empires from their foundations 
and turned the stream of history from its old 
channels," and for whom, as the sagacious Na- 
poleon, whose brain Victor Hugo called "the 
cube of the human intellect," once affirmed, 
"millions were now ready to die." 

But Jesus appears to us not only completely 
innocent, as His friends and enemies affirmed — 
Xenophon said of Socrates that he was without 
impiety — but positively and completely holy. 
The crystal goblet was not only stainless, it was 
also filled with the wine of absolute goodness. 
His moral teaching was perfect, and was per- 
fectly illustrated in His own life, thus contrast- 
ing with us, and contrasting with the best of the 
prophets and saints whose confession so often is 



224 CHRISTIANITY, THE WORLD-RELIGION. 

that of the Roman poet, "I see and approve the 
better and I follow the worse." He saw, ap- 
proved, followed the absolute best. Moses was, 
perhaps, the greatest of all the sons of men, and 
his was a noble nature, but he was conscious of 
weakness, full of mistakes, acknowledged his 
sins, and was punished for his sins; he was both 
rash and self-distrustful, hasty in the beginning, 
going before he was sent, and his presumption or 
his distrust of God was so offensive on one occa- 
sion, that he was forbidden to enter the Land of 
Promise. Moses prayed as a sinner, and shed 
tears of sorrow for himself, as well as for his peo- 
ple. Great and splendid were his virtues, but 
compared with those of Christ, they seem like 
stars that peep through the clouds here and there 
in a darkened sky, instead of the unveiled and 
spotless heavens, lighted with the glory of all 
the constellations. Moses struggled from below 
upwards. Jesus appears to descend from a 
higher sphere, and to shed abroad the light and 
perfume of celestial worlds. 

While Paul, the most illustrious of Christian 
preachers, cried out, "Evil is present with me;" 
while the great Greek philosophers sanctioned 
some of the worst vices; while the founders of 
other religions have given a composite of snatches 
of divine inspiration with immense textures of hu- 
man guesswork and invention ; while Christian 
poetry finds its pathos in the stream of penitence 
which runs through its melodies, Jesus not only 



THE UNIVERSAL MAN. 225 

asked " Which of you convinceth me of sin?" 
but he could say "I am the truth," and in His 
prayer for His disciples in the parting hour could 
exclaim, "I have finished the work Thou gavest 
Me to do." Can I bring you still nearer to 
Him? His heart was ever open toward God 
and man, with an apparent consciousness of per- 
fect oneness with both. It was His daily bread 
to do His Father's will. His piety was abso- 
lute, and His life toward men was unbroken 
love. Moving among all classes, from the fish- 
ing boat to the throne, talking with the twelve, 
and with the thousands, with children and with 
priests, everywhere, at home or on the dusty 
road, in the temple or by the seashore, he is 
always the same gracious, inspiring, lofty, yet 
familiar friend, brother, teacher. With a good- 
ness which felt for physical suffering, He com- 
bined a faith in the possibilities of human nature, 
which not only led Him to proclaim the highest 
spiritual truth to an outcast woman, but also to 
commit His Gospel and kingdom to His dis- 
ciples, leaving to His followers the work of teach- 
ing the nations, with no constitution, no laws, no 
written documents in their hands, sending them 
to their colossal task with no fixed and definite 
rules with regard to Church government or 
methods of administration, giving them the 
liberty of forming Christian societies and adjust- 
ing themselves to ever-changing circumstances, 
and entrusting them, under His spiritual guid- 



226 CHRISTIANITY, THE WORLD-RELIGION. 

ance, with the majestic mission of evangelizing 
the earth. 

Jesus, as we know, rose above the formalism 
of the Pharisee and the sceptical looseness of the 
Sadducee. He rescued the Mosaic statutes 
from their accumulated errors, and declared love 
to be the whole law. He splintered the granite 
walls of dead observance, and announced that 
the Sabbath was made for man's good. Ascend- 
ing above local and national prejudice He pro- 
claimed Himself to the Jews' most hated enemies, 
the Samaritans. He lived and died with the 
consciousness of the whole world's needs in His 
heart and, while filled with the loftiest purposes 
for all mankind, was He not lovingly faithful to 
those nearest His own life? It has been said of 
Rousseau that his creed combined love to man- 
kind in general, with hatred to every individual 
he met, but Jesus was not only compassionate 
to the world, but charmingly affectionate to 
every little child. Galilee found in Him a 
friend and physician; our race finds in Him a 
brother. There was nothing exclusively Jewish 
about Him excepting His dress and His speech. 
Other great men seem to belong to some nation 
or age. Moses was a Hebrew, Socrates an 
Athenian, Confucius a Chinese, Buddha a Hindu, 
Mohammed an Arab, Luther a German, not only 
in blood but in spirit, but Jesus belongs as much 
to the West as to the East, to America, as to 
Palestine, to the dying martyr at Smithfield as 



THE UNIVERSAL MAN. 227 

to the dying thief on the cross. It has been 
said of Him, that "He found disciples and wor- 
shipers among the Jews, although He identified 
Himself with none of their traditions; among 
the Greeks, though He proclaimed no new system 
of philosophy; among the Romans, although He 
fought no battles and founded no worldly em- 
pire; among the Hindus, who despise all men of 
low caste; among the black savages of Africa, 
the red men of America, as well as the most 
highly civilized nations of modern times, in all 
quarters of the globe." O Nazarene ! Thine 
empire overleaps all kingdoms, as Thy full orbed 
manhood embraced all virtues. In Thee was 
found the perfection of opposing graces, meek- 
ness and majesty, feminine tenderness and manly 
strength and childlike innocence, with a courage 
above that of Athanasius, an equanimity eclips- 
ing that of William of Orange, a moral intensity 
deeper than Dante's, a self-sacrifice more won- 
drous than Sakya Muni's, and a benevolence at 
whose fount of fire John Howard and Florence 
Nightingale lit their torches. Thou didst 
scourge the hypocrite and forgive the outcast, 
and weep for Thy dead friend, and die for Thine 
enemies; in Thee we behold the equilibrium of 
ethics and piety, the harmony of God and man, 
the sweet marriage of contrasting virtues. Our 
prisms may analyze the beam of Thy glory, and 
our eyes may gaze on the nine-fold wonder, but 
if the white splendor of Thy very self fell upon 



228 CHRISTIANITY, THE WORLD-RELIGION. 

us, we should hide our faces before its insuffer- 
able beauty. Well did the old saint of Christian 
art, Fra Angelico the blessed, paint Thy face on 
bended knees; we too can but worship, for, as 
we look through the fair curtain of Thy perfect 
humanity, there dawns on our faith the adorable 
radiance of Thine undimmed divinity. 

Thus, the Christian believer may go to all 
nations, and may say, "Behold the man, the 
bright consummate flower of the race, the Son of 
Man, the Son of Humanity." We may say with 
one of his disciples, "He is the universal Homo, 
blending in Himself all races, ages, sexes, tem- 
peraments. He is the essential Vir, from the 
hem of whose robe virtue is ever flowing. He, 
Himself, realized Auguste Comte's majestic 
dream of the Apotheosis of Humanity." Is 
there one word of intellectual or moral eulogy 
that does not befit His name, who not only was 
all that we adore, but did all that man needs as 
his Saviour and Captain of Salvation? To His 
perfect moral glory He added the majesty of 
suffering, and He bore the manifold indignities 
of malice and cruelty and ingratitude, not with 
Stoic hardness, but with more than womanly 
sensitiveness, and with a calmness which was a 
benediction of peace to His followers. 3 Nearly 
every step of His ministry was beset with oppo- 
sition, contradiction, and grief. In the ribald 
blasphemy of His foes He was linked with the 

8 Appendix, Lecture V, Note 3. 



THE UNIVERSAL MAN. 229 

Prince of Devils. He trod the winepress of His 
agony alone, forsaken in His darkest hour by 
His own disciples. But, sustained by the might 
of love, with quietness unbroken by a murmur, 
calmly as the falling sun of eventide, He passed 
up the tragic slopes of Golgotha, and with for- 
giveness for His murderers He closed His life of 
transcendent and spotless virtue with the im- 
mortal infamy of the Cross. 

friends of truth, may not all men rightly 
look to Him, and exclaim "Our King!" And 
may not Christians go to men everywhere and 
say, "This matchless personality is worthy of all 
your faith and affection. He is to be believed 
in what He said of Himself; He is the ideal and 
Universal Man, and He is the Son of God. The 
perfection of His wisdom shows that He was not 
deluded, and the perfection of His holiness that 
He was not a pretender; therefore men are 
bound to accept His interpretation of Himself. 
He could say, "Before Abraham was, I am," 
"He that hath seen Me hath seen the Father." 
He could pardon sin in His own name. He 
could rightly call Himself the light of the world, 
and make Himself the center of His own revela- 
tion, with a self-assertion which would be blas- 
phemy in any other. He could declare Himself 
the judge of the living and the dead, and, with 
spirit unsubdued, expiring on the Cross, with a 
mighty host about Him hideous with brutal joy 
over His shame and apparent defeat, He could 



230 CHRISTIANITY, THE WORLD-RELIGION. 

tranquilly speak to the penitent robber at His 
side, and proclaim Himself the Lord of that 
mysterious realm lying beyond the boundaries 
of the tomb. There need be no hesitation, 
therefore, or uncertainty in receiving His de- 
claration that He transcended the saints and 
prophets, the priests and kings of the Old Testa- 
ment. When he declared, as one has written, 
that 4 'He is the living bond of unity necessary 
to fellowship among men and the worship of 
God"; that "He is sufficient for every human 
need, and becomes through His death only the 
more mighty"; that "He is universal, no local 
or provincial person, but one who invites all, and 
promises rest to all he invites" ; and that "He is 
directly accessible to all;" His august character 
vindicates every claim, while the record He has 
made in history is a second divine authentica- 
tion establishing his every word as truth and life. 
Surely His Gospel, centering in such a person, 
has this peculiarity, among others, that it can 
be preached and made the theme of a life-giving 
instruction which is never exhausted. It has 
established in Christendom an institution no- 
where else discoverable, the pulpit, which has 
become the seminary and seed-ground for all the 
higher elements of civilization. While Bud- 
dhism can be explained and can be disseminated 
by the living voice, it has never built up a pulpit 
like that which distinguishes the world of Chris- 
tianity. It has no such literature of spoken elo- 



THE UNIVERSAL MAN. 231 

quence and power as that by which the living 
Christ is brought home to living hearts to-day. 
Would a library fully set forth the pre-eminent 
and undying influence which goes out from Him, 
who was the Word made flesh and dwelling 
among men, and who is made real and mighty 
by His Spirit wherever His truth is proclaimed? 
Did you ever think how all the great conver- 
sions, by which vast energies have been set in 
motion, have had direct relation to the Christ? 
Paul, gaining at the gates of Damascus his vision 
of the Nazarene; St. Augustine, finding in Jesus 
the attraction in whom all souls may secure 
peace; Luther, discovering the way of life in the 
Erfurt monastery; John Bunyan finding, like 
his own pilgrim, the secret of the Cross; John 
Wesley, learning from a Moravian missionary 
the emancipating truth of free salvation through 
the Redeemer's grace; Mozoomdar, under the 
grim old seasum tree in the Hindu College com- 
pound, with his sudden vision of Jesus as a 
strange, human, kindred love, becoming at his 
time of deepest need the most sympathetic of 
friends, — what are these but symbolic illustrations 
of the working of that majestic divine presence, 
through whom God has become real to the heart 
of humanity? 

And while we may rightly believe that in 
Christ are all possible ethical reforms, the forces 
of all social progress, the spiritual energy that 
shall yet assimilate to its own divine quality the 



232 CHRISTIANITY, THE WORLD-RELIGION. 

nations and institutions of men, I always feel 
His greatest victories have been within the soul, 
and we are not surprised, therefore, that Chris- 
tianity has produced, among the more highly 
gifted, characters of such force and radiance as 
we find in every age from the days of Paul to 
those of Livingstone. Asiatic scholars coming 
to America and Great Britain have expressed to 
me their admiration and surprise at the character 
of the Christian women whom they have seen — 
women possessed of force and culture quite equal 
to that which they have known in the men 
among whom they have been wont to associate. 
Any adequate knowledge of Christian lands and 
of Christian history must fill the non-Christian 
mind with amazement at the variety and force of 
that manhood and womanhood which are the 
supreme results of the Gospel. It is a many-sided 
character that the all-sided Man, through His spirit 
and truth, has fashioned. Oh, what a galaxy shines 
in the heaven of Christian civilization! the king- 
liest men and the queenliest women of all time clus- 
tering around the Star which has become the Sun ! 
There is the heroic Apostle to the Gentiles, so 
great that through him perhaps we gain our best 
ideas of the moral grandeur of Paul's Master. 
There is John, transfigured in the light which 
shone upon him from the days of his young 
manhood to the beautiful old age, out of which 
he passed into eternal youth. There is the 
greatest of the Latin Fathers, his eyes fixed on 



THE UNIVERSAL MAN. 233 

the Cross. There is he who held out alone 
against the world, and with whose name we ever 
associate the supreme declaration of our Lord's 
divinity. There is Bernard of Clairvaux, his 
whole life a passion for holiness. There is the 
Florentine poet, illumined in the radiance which 
he climbed through three worlds to see. There 
is St. Francis of Assisi, the most loveable of all 
the mediaeval saints. There is the greatest of 
German reformers, whose manhood is rugged 
enough to be symbolized by mountains, whose 
heart is tender enough to be likened to the 
brooks gushing from the mountain side. There 
is the sublimest figure in the literary history of 
England, in whom the passion for liberty and 
righteousness glowed like the fires of ^Etna, lift- 
ing his planetary orbs of song like clashing 
cymbals above his head, in praise of the Son of 
God. There are all the great reformers and 
evangelists of English annals from Wycliff to 
Wesley, whose consecration to the spiritual bet- 
terment of England's poor brings them into line 
with the true Apostolic succession. There are 
men like Thomas Arnold, whose soul moulded a 
generation, and like Maurice, whom Gladstone 
called a spiritual splendor. There are states- 
men beneath the shadow of whose kindness and 
moral kingliness nations have rested securely. 
There are all the greatest artists, from Michael 
Angelo to Rembrandt, and all the greatest 
musicians from Palestrina to Beethoven, and a 



234 CHRISTIANITY, THE WORLD-RELIGION. 

shining host of the poets, from Bernard of Cluny, 
to Tennyson, the Brownings, and Whittier. There 
are the humble souls whom God has made lofty, 
and the lofty souls whom Christ has made lowly, 
— not a few hundreds only, but scores of thou- 
sands, living to-day, and living always, to know 
whom is to get some fuller knowledge of the 
Prince of Glory, and whose deeds of mercy and 
words of truth and love keep alive the spirit of 
the Man of Galilee. 

Christian missionaries go to other lands and 
find among their peoples a knowledge of truth, 
corresponding in a measure with Christian truth. 
When they bring to others the lofty message in 
regard to God, they find that other faiths speak 
of Brahma and Allah and Shangti, and Mani- 
tou, the Supreme Spirit of Heaven and Earth. 
Hinduism has its trinity, and the Moslem has his 
Bible, which speaks in no uncertain praise of the 
Christian Scriptures. The Parsee points to his 
sacred Zendavesta, full of spiritual sublimity, 
while the sacred Books of the Hindu, the Bud- 
dhist, and the Confucianist, far surpass the 
Christian Scriptures in number and extent. 
Other religions have their prophets and sages, as 
numerous as those of the Hebrew and Christian 
tradition, their sacred cities, their temples, 
almost equaling the grandeur of St. Peter's, their 
priests, their propitiations, their incarnations, 
their doctrines of Heaven, Nirvana, and Hell. 
The missionary goes to a world pre-occupied by 



THE UNIVERSAL MAN. 235 

religion; but the reason that he has in many 
lands made such progress, though heralded by 
no blare of trumpets, and confronted by im- 
memorial priesthoods and prejudices, and hin- 
dered by the divisions of Christendom, is that he 
has been able to show that all the truths of other 
religions are found in Christ's Gospel, and found 
there in completer and purer form; and, be- 
cause, supported and inspired by the Holy 
Spirit, he has been able to show that in Jesus 
Christ, who lived among men and died for our 
sins; in a Saviour who is the Son of God, illus- 
trating every human virtue and glorifying our 
earth by His sinless and holy presence, — there is 
lodged a divine power and love, able to save, as 
one has said, "to the uttermost ends of the 
earth, to the uttermost limits of time, to the 
uttermost periods of life, to the uttermost lengths 
of depravity, to the uttermost depths of misery, 
and to the uttermost measure of perfection." 

Thoughtful men in India perceive in Christ 
the reconciler of the religions of the world, and 
have rendered the race a service by fastening the 
mind on one truth, that all the great faiths find 
in Jesus their fulfillment. As Christ blends in 
Himself "all race-marks, and illustrates in Him- 
self all essential human capacities;" and as by 
His death on the Cross He has given to Jew and 
Gentile, to Greek and barbarian, to bond and 
free, to man and woman, the one central, shin- 
ing object of moral sublimity; as by His teach- 



236 CHRIS TIAJVITT, THE WORLD-RELIGION. 

ing of love and neighborhood, of humanity and 
of mercy, He has made Himself the brother of 
all men, so the world may discover in His per- 
fect faith, as another has said, " all that is good 
in all other religions, the symbolism of India, 
the aspiration of Egypt, the estheticism of 
Greece, the majesty of Rome, the hopefulness 
of Persia, the conservatism of China, the mys- 
ticism of India, the enthusiasm of Arabia, the 
energy of Teutonia, the versatilities of Chris- 
tendom." 

As we look around the world to-day, we dis- 
cover no universal church having one outward 
organization. But there is unity in Jesus Christ. 
All claim and worship Him. To Him the 
Greek Catholic Church, rich in the memories of 
Clement, Origen, Chrysostom, bows in adora- 
tion. To Him the Roman Catholic Church, 
starred with great names, Ambrose, Fenelon, 
Bossuet, Xavier, Newman, renders divine hom- 
age. The Anglican Church, in all its wide con- 
stituency, builds on the Christ a main hope of 
the reunion of Christendom. To that Christ the 
Lutheran and Reformed Churches, and all their 
progeny, give loving worship as to the Son of 
God, in whom dwelt the fulness of the Godhead 
bodily. There are many words of fear and 
doubt " rattling in the throat of our dying cen- 
tury," but one brave word of faith rings out as 
never before, Christ! Christ! I see agitation, 
unrest, progressive movement in all the denomi- 



THE UNIVERSAL MAN. 237 

nations, among all peoples, in all social organ- 
isms ; there is no quiet anywhere, and all seem 
to be looking toward one goal. There is move- 
ment among Baptists, and Presbyterians, and 
Congregationalists, and Lutherans, and Metho- 
dists, and Roman Catholics, and Episcopalians. 
Some of them are losing their hold of cherished 
dogmas and practices. Some are feeling unrest 
on account of the barriers which keep them from 
uniting more perfectly with other disciples. A 
new age is being born out of the gestation of our 
times. And what a stir we begin to discover in 
the camps of the non-Christian systems! They 
look forward to impending changes. They feel the 
contact with Christendom and are absorbing Chris- 
tian ideas as if they were aboriginal truths of their 
own philosophies. And what means this wide 
social restlessness, men seeking a fairer heritage, 
a larger place, a fuller share of this world's 
opportunities, except that the Christian idea of 
manhood and its worth, of brotherhood and its 
claims, is gaining ampler acceptance? In all 
these bodies the lines of movement are forward ; 
but strange to tell the lines are not parallel, but 
convergent, and they all bend toward the teach- 
ing and the person and the work of Jesus Christ, 
who is the one bond and the one goal. All the 
light of human hope gathers more and more 
about Him, and the closer men get to each* 
other, the closer they get to their King. "If," 
says Dean Fremantle, "the human race is one, 



238 CHRISTIANITY, THE WORLD-RELIGION. 

and is to be drawn into unity, it is impossible 
that there can be ultimately different religions.'* 
He declares that "the recent Parliament of Re- 
ligions in Chicago has widened our knowledge of 
other faiths and our sympathy, and has done 
much to remove the antagonisms of theology, 
and to bring men to apply the great general prin- 
ciples underlying all religions, but of which the 
character of Christ is the supreme expression, to 
bear upon the general life." Truly Christ is the 
meeting place of humanity ; I can discover no 
other. 4 Who can ever forget that in that great 
assembly, out of which this Lectureship sprang; 
who can forget, as another has written, "that 
amid all that was said, there was one name that 
towered conspicuous in its sublimity? We 
criticised not only the theology, but the motives 
and characters of Buddha, of Confucius, and 
Mohammed, but not one voice from the far-off 
East breathed one word against the character of 
Him who is the King of Kings and Lord of 
Lords." 

His kingdom is yet to come; the uttermost 
parts of the earth shall be given to Him for His 
possession. The prayer which he taught is yet to 
be fully answered. For the establishment and 
expansion of His empire have been the on-go- 
ings of history. For this the Word was given, 
the Lord speaking to prophets and training a 
chosen nation ; for this the light which enlight- 

4 Appendix, Lecture V, Note 4. 



THE UNIVERSAL MAN. 239 

ened every man has been shining in human 
hearts the world over, so that Greek philosophy, 
and Mosaic legislation, and Buddhistic thought, 
and Roman law, and Hindu doctrines of the 
incarnation, and nineteenth-century science, may 
all of them be seen at last to be schoolmasters 
leading to Christ. For this the heavens broke 
open and revealed, in the Universal Man, "in 
man at his climax," the saving God. For this 
the Son of Man descended into the gloom of 
Gethsemane, and offered Himself on Calvary, a 
propitiation for the sins of the whole world. 
For this the Holy Ghost was given on that Pen- 
tecostal day, when Parthians and Medes, Africans 
and Jews, Arabians, and strangers from Rome, 
received the glad tidings of forgiveness and 
reconciliation. For this were the missionary 
toils of the Apostles, and the martyrdoms of 
Ignatius and Perpetua, and the long agonizing 
conflict which destroyed the ancient paganism and 
placed the Cross on the standards of Constantine. 
For this have been the revolutions and triumphs 
of the waiting and suffering ages. All the 
achievements of modern invention, all the 
accumulations of wealth and the enterprises of 
commerce, the building of great universities, the 
extension of the empire of science, the rehabilita- 
tion of old nationalities, are significant and 
luminous as they contribute to the fulfillment of 
the prayer, "Thy Kingdom Come." Emanci- 
pation in America is seen to have connection in 



240 CHRISTIANITY, THE WORLD-RELIGION. 

the mind of Providence with Evangelization in 
Africa. The pen which wrote freedom for the 
slave God shall change into the sword that is to 
destroy the degrading spiritual bondage of the 
African queen. The Universal Man shall yet be 
the Universal King; He shall yet stand upon the 
earth, while many crowns from many lands, with 
many stars, the emerald splendors of the Pacific 
and Indian seas, the lustrous coronet of Ethiopia, 
and the impearled and priceless glories of the 
gorgeous Orient shall be laid at His feet, and 
the nations, having wrought out the divine pur- 
pose, shall be no more, for the kingdoms of this 
world shall have become the Kingdom of our 
Lord and of His Christ, and He shall reign for 
ever and ever. 



THE HISTORIC CHARACTER OF CHRIS- 
TIANITY AS CONFIRMING ITS CLAIMS 
TO WORLD-WIDE AUTHORITY. 



So ist ohne Wunder und Mysterium im wahren reli- 
giosen Sinne keine Offenbarung Gottes denkbar. — Christ- 
liche Apologetik von Dr. Herm. Schultz, p. 22. 

The whole substance and meaning of religion — life in God, 
the forgiveness of sins, consolation in suffering — she [the 
church] couples with Christ's person; and in doing so she 
associates everything that gives life its meaning and its per- 
manence, nay the Eternal itself, with an historical fact; 
maintaining the indissoluble unity of both. — Christianity and 
History, Adolf Harnack, p. 17. 

Fur die Junger des Herrn sind zweifellos die Erschein- 
ungen des Auferstandenen der entscheidende Beweis fiir 
ihn als den Konig des Reiches Gottes und als die vollkom- 
men Offenbarung Gottes gewesen und die Thatsache 
dieser Erscheinungen kann fiir keinen Verniinftigen zweifel- 
haft sein, so mannigfaltig auch unsere Berichte liber die 
einzelnen Vorgange dabei in Widerspriiche verlaufen. 
— Christliche Apologetik von Dr. Herm. Schultz, p. no. 

It follows that the Perfect Man, embodying the pre- 
cepts and ideals of the Perfect Religion, must be a real 
historic character, exposed to all the trials and temptations 
of mortal man, yet triumphing over them — one who has left 
his impress large on the page of history. The story must 
thus be on the one hand capable of examination and veri- 
fication by the scholar, and on the other hand capable of 
apprehension by the child. — Universal Religion, a lecture 
delivered at Bangalore, in November, 1896, by Edward P. 
Rice, p. 7. 



SIXTH LECTURE. 

THE HISTORIC CHARACTER OF CHRISTIANITY 
AS CONFIRMING ITS CLAIMS TO WORLD- 
WIDE AUTHORITY. 

There is no other form of art which is so in- 
wrought with human history as architecture. 
In the adornment of a great building, the choicest 
work of the sculptor and painter may find a con- 
genial place, and by such a structure man illus- 
trates his conquests over Nature and over Time. 
By means of it he endeavors to show that he has 
a perpetuated life on the earth ; by means of it he 
tells to after generations the story of his thought ; 
but when the building is meant to embody the 
idea of worship, when it is so constructed as to 
lift the heart in hope and aspiration heaven- 
ward, when it is so massive and stately as to 
"fill the mind with awe and shut the soul up 
in tranquillity," and when it is so linked with 
the life of a great people as to be the symbol 
of national unity and power, then it becomes 
an object of grandeur over-topping the Apen- 
nines and the Alps. Such a building, pre-emi- 
nently, is the now finished Cathedral of Cologne, 
the noblest monument of Gothic architecture in 
the world, its two completed spires stretching 

243 



244 CHRISTIANITY, THE WORLD-RELIGION. 

their long shadows in the evening twilight across 
the Rhine. 

I would have you look upon this Cathedral as 
a majestic, but yet inadequate, illustration of the 
historic character of Christianity. The Christian 
religion is a religion intertwined in its life and 
teachings with a prolonged and impressive historic 
development. It has a great past. It is not the 
creature of a day. Into it the nations have 
brought of their glory and honor. It is associated 
with prophets, apostles, kings, sages, saints, and 
martyrs. The story of war and of conquest, of 
sin, of agony, disappointment, delay, hope, 
aspiration has been woven into its essential life. 
Its history has proceeded on a divine plan toward 
a divine consummation, and its records are revela- 
tions, its events are truths, its miracles are parables 
radiant with the golden light of celestial love. 
Alone of all the religions of the world, in a sense 
which I shall hereafter explain, it is historic. 

More than six hundred years ago were laid 
the foundations of the Cologne Cathedral. Only 
a small portion of the massive structure was 
ready for use in the thirteenth century. De- 
layed by poverty and war and national discord, 
the sublime idea of the unknown architect had 
a slow materialization. But when, after six 
long centuries, the work was completed amid the 
rejoicings of Germany, it was in accord with the 
original plan of that marvellous mind, who, from 
another sphere it may be, had patiently watched 



CHARACTER OF CHRISTIANITY. 245 

the slow flowering into stone of his lofty con- 
ceptions. Upon a slight eminence, made of the 
debris of old Roman buildings that stood there 
in the times of the Caesars, the massive founda- 
tions were planted forty and sixty feet in depth. 
This was to be no frail and yielding fabric, but 
one wherein should be illustrated, so far as man 
can do it, the security and eternity of God Him- 
self. It was no flimsy and faltering trust in the 
Unseen which could undertake and, after dis- 
heartening delays, at last complete such a monu- 
ment of Christian Faith. It wearies the mind 
merely to contemplate the patient toil which 
must be continued for a decade, just to add a 
few more string-courses to this mighty anthem 
in stone. Great cities are burned and destroyed 
and rebuilded with ampler magnificence, but the 
hammers are still smiting and the chisels are 
still ringing in the workshops of Cologne, where 
generations of artisans are educated into artists, 
that the work may go on. The quarries of 
Drachenfels and Caen yield their treasures of 
rock, to be floated down the Rhine or carried 
by means which to the old Archbishops would 
have seemed almost supernatural; dynasties rise 
and fall, new continents are discovered, new 
faiths spring up to threaten the old ; the soldiers 
of Napoleon desecrate the unfinished building; 
a new Germany comes to life and demands that 
the old Gothic wonder be finished; the needle 
guns of Sedan complete the restoration of Ger- 



246 CHRISTIANITY, THE WORLD-RELIGION. 

man unity; French cannon are molten into a 
chime of bells for the gigantic towers; upward, 
upward grow the blossoming and leafy stones 
till the last is laid, the scaffoldings are taken 
down, the broken sculptures are replaced, the 
rubbish is removed, and the princes and kings of 
the German Fatherland join in solemn and sub- 
lime Te Deums in praise of Him, whose only is 
the Kingdom and the Power and the Glory. 

Have we not here a parable in history of the 
Christian Revelation, of its majestic foundation 
in the Old Testament, and of its immovable 
basis also on the great truths of natural religion; 
of the slow progress and unfolding of the King- 
dom of God through Hebrew history, and of its 
glorious consummation in the commonwealth 
which Jesus founded and sent forward on its 
march through the centuries? Who shall ade- 
quately describe the majesty and grace of the 
Gothic Cathedral by the Rhine? It almost re- 
quires an education to get any real conception 
of it. It seems like a product of nature, some- 
thing that grew of itself, it is so light and up- 
springing, so lovely and delicate in proportion 
and detail. But when you ascend, and walk in 
and out among those graceful flying buttresses 
and beautifully sculptured pinnacles, they ap- 
pear as solid and massive as mountains. Stand- 
ing before the double western port, and looking 
upward five hundred and twenty-five feet, till 
your eyes rest upon the topmost stones, the 



CHARACTER OF CHRISTIANITY. 247 

finials which crown the spires, they seem to you 
like leafy and cruciform ornaments, which you 
could have placed therewith your own hand ; 
but each one of those finials, when put in posi- 
tion, had the weight of a hundred thousand 
pounds. As you examine and study the re- 
moter parts of this miracle in stone, you are 
fascinated by the faithfulness which wrought out 
the hidden ornamentation with the same pious 
care that delights you in the multitudinous 
sculptures on which the passer-by may place his 
hand. And when at last you venture within, 
and walk the spacious floors, flooded with rain- 
bow light from the windows, which are the work 
of old-time artists, or the recent splendid gifts 
of Bavarian King or Prussian Crown Prince or 
Imperial Kaiser, all of whom have passed into 
the unseen world, how wondrous are these lofty 
vaults toward which instinctively and perpetually 
the eyes are upturned ; how solemn the deep- 
ening aisles, how beautiful the massive, flowering, 
clustering columns, a forest of stone recalling the 
primeval temples of humanity, the leafy fanes 
within which Druid priests and Gothic savages 
may have offered their worship to Odin, Frija, 
Thor! And that nothing may be lacking to 
inspire and teach and uplift, how wondrously, in 
elaborate sculpture within and without, and how 
splendidly in gorgeous panes, stained with dyes 
that are as "precious as the blood of kings," 
is pictured and unfolded the story of man's 



248 CHRISTIANITY, THE WORLD-RELIGION. 

redemption. Patriarchs, prophets, missionaries, 
martyrs, angels, and the Man Divine pass be- 
fore us in sublime procession; the one building 
epitomizing the life of humanity and lifting our 
thoughts above man's fall and above his present 
greatness, to that future in which the redeemed, 
gathered in the temple of God's own building, 
shall share the glory of Him in whose name this 
Cathedral rises like a Psalm to heaven. And so 
Christianity is a structure to which all beauty 
belongs, as well as all massiveness — a structure 
crowned with the Cross and adorned within and 
without with images of sainthood and blazonries 
of unmatched historic devotion and achieve- 
ment. It is a sacred edifice which shelters and 
illustrates the chief historic development of man- 
kind; it is itself the story of man's redemption, 
through divine mercy ; and it alone points, with 
sure promise, to the house not built with hands, 
eternal, in the heavens. 

No other religion could be symbolized by the 
Cologne Cathedral. Hinduism might find its 
symbol in some rock-hewn temple of Hindustan, 
finished a thousand years ago, and now, as I 
hear Indian scholars saying, fast falling into 
decay; and Buddhism may be likened to a 
painted and tiled pagoda; and Islam to some 
aspiring, crescent - crowned and minaretted 
mosque ; but Christianity is the only historic 
structure whereon is written the whole life of 
humanity ; the only temple of faith which sym- 



CHARACTER OF CHRISTIANITY. 249 

bolizes the story of man's redemption; the only 
house of worship which shelters the peace, the 
trust, and the hope which are furnished by a 
divinely authenticated Revelation; the only 
sacred edifice crowned by the Cross and re- 
splendent with the light that streams from the 
New Jerusalem. The proposition which I offer 
in this closing Lecture is this: That Christianity 
alone is a religion of historic facts, a system of 
faith not built upon a philosophy, or merely the 
ethical teaching of some saintly founder, but 
resting on what is surer and more abiding, a 
historic basis which has remained unshaken for 
nineteen hundred years. That foundation, that 
history, is the very life of the Christian religion, 
a history centering in a supernatural Person who 
sums up the truths and vital forces of Chris- 
tianity. Any one familiar with certain forms of 
Oriental thought will realize that much which 
has been set forth in the preceding Lectures 
might be acknowledged and accepted without 
changing the mental and spiritual attitude of 
the Eastern thinker. He would say, and he is 
learning to say, "My faith is broad enough to 
accept truth from every source;" and so we find 
that Christian ideas are being taken up and swal- 
lowed by elastic and omnivorous systems. There- 
fore, to be true to the whole truth which Chris- 
tian believers, from the beginning, have set 
forth, it must be shown that Christianity is fitted 
to become a world-wide faith, demanding not 



250 CHRISTIANITY, THE WORLD-RELIGION. 

the giving up of any spiritual truth, but the 
renouncing of other schemes as methods of salva- 
tion, because it, and it alone, is a religion of 
supernatural historic facts; the supernatural 
history which it has proclaimed from the first 
is true history. The believer in some other 
religion may remain outwardly loyal to it, and 
accept the Fatherhood of God, the humanities of 
Jesus, the ethics of the New Testament, except 
where they interfere with artificial social distinc- 
tions, the Christian doctrine of immortality, and 
I know not what besides; but let him accept the 
incarnation of God in the Jesus of the Gospels 
as an actual historic occurrence ; let him believe 
that Christ came from Heaven to earth as the 
culmination of God's previous revelations of 
Himself to men; let him believe the supernatural 
signs which accompanied the ministry of Christ 
as actual events ; and, if he follows his convic- 
tions, Christ Himself will be accepted as the 
divine, authoritative, final Teacher and only 
Saviour of the race. Therefore, it is supremely 
important in the present Lecture, to show that 
Christianity alone is a religion centering in such 
historic facts as are contained in the New Testa- 
ment. It is, also, a faith set in the midst of a 
great history, reaching back through prophets, 
sages, kings, patriarchs, toward the beginning 
of recorded annals. It is a religion inwrought 
with the changing and advancing life of the most 
wonderful of peoples. It is the historic flower 



CHAR A C TER OF CHRIS TIANITT. 2 5 1 

of Judaism. "The revelation, recorded in the 
Bible, is a jewel which God has given to us in a 
setting of human history. The love of God to 
His people now is a continuation of that which 
He showed to our fathers. . . . To deny 
that Christianity can ultimately be traced back 
to such acts of revelation, taking place at a 
definite time in a definite cycle, involves in the 
last resort a denial that there is any true religion 
at all, or that religion is anything more than a 
vague subjective feeling. " " Revelation itself has 
become a force in human conduct only by first 
becoming a factor in human history." 1 

But beyond these general considerations which 
are true and important, it is essential that we 
see that Christianity centers in the character, 
person, teachings, in the life, death, and resurrec- 
tion of Jesus Christ. The facts of the Gospels, 
truly interpreted, make the Gospel the divine 
evangel which we believe is giving life to the 
world. The New Testament history is the life 
of the Christian religion, and it is a history em- 
bodied in the Person who sums up the truths and 
vital forces of Christianity. If Christ, as revealed 
in the Gospels, is a historic delusion or fabrica- 
tion, then our faith is vain, and we have believed 
a lying legend or a delusive myth. If the his- 
toric foundations are gone, then the Christianity 
of the future will no more resemble the Chris- 
tianity of the past than a shattered church, 

Appendix, Lecture VI, Note 1. 



252 CHRISTIANITY, THE WORLD-RELIGION. 

whose underlying basis has sunk into quicksands 
and whose walls are crumbling, resembles the 
Cathedral of Cologne. Take away the Gospel 
history, and our divine religion becomes only a 
scheme of human devising or a system of morals, 
mingling with other schemes and systems, and 
losing all distinctive, commanding, victorious 
power. 

In the preceding Lectures we have been 
brought face to face with most commanding 
facts. We have found one religion, and only 
one, presenting the aspects of a vigorous faith in 
all lands and among all races. We have found 
the Christian religion, claiming a supernatural 
origin and preaching the supernatural Christ, 
working such effects in individual and national 
regeneration as to add strength to its claims. 
We have found a unique phenomenon in the 
Christian Bible, absolutely the only universal 
Book, unified by its doctrine of the kingdom of 
God and by its disclosure of the purposes of 
Redemption. We have found it a volume speak- 
ing with strong, clear words to the heart of every 
spiritual need, and adapting itself, as no other 
book does, both by its contents and its form, to 
the mental and moral peculiarities of all races. 
We have also seen in the Christian doctrine of 
God as one — as spiritual, omnipresent, holy, 
merciful — a God revealed through His Son as the 
Redeemer of the world. We have found in 
this Christian doctrine of the Supreme Being, 



CHARACTER OF CHRISTIANITY. 253 

an adequate basis for a Universal Religion. We 
have found that Christianity presents in the 
Christ the Universal Man and the only Saviour. 
We have seen in it the completion and fulfill- 
ment of all the scattered and fragmentary ideals, 
hopes, and longings of the nations. And thus 
we have gained the right vantage-ground from 
which to survey the definite claim which Chris- 
tianity has always made, that its record of super- 
naturalism is historically true. From a broad 
survey of humanity we have, I hope in some 
degree, become convinced that man needs re- 
demption, and that we can look nowhere else, 
except to the Christian religion, for the satis- 
faction of his profoundest spiritual needs. 2 I 
have endeavored to make it reasonable to be- 
lieve, that if God purposed to set a supernatural, 
authoritative seal on one religion as designed for 
all the world, it can only be the Christian ; on 
any book, it can only be the Bible ; on any one 
person, it can only be Jesus Christ; on any one 
doctrine concerning Himself, it can only be on 
the radiant, matchless elements of Christian 
Theism. 

Christianity is the only religion now existing 
among men which squarely, unflinchingly, and 
with undisturbed serenity on the part of the 
great preponderating majority of its intelligent 
votaries and expounders, bases itself on a super- 
natural history. Mohammedanism, Christianity's 

9 Appendix, Lecture VI, Note 2. 



254 CHRISTIANITY, THE WORLD-RELIGION. 

chief rival in the reformation of Africa, is not in 
the same sense a historic religion or a religion of 
facts. It centers in a book of precepts, in the 
teachings of the Koran ; and it has no superna- 
tural story to tell as its chief message to men, 
like that which gives such interest and splendor 
and authority to the Christian Gospel. Passages 
can be shown from the Koran that testify to the 
authenticity of the Christian Scriptures, which 
show that prophecy and revelation are with the 
children of Israel, and which point to the divinity 
of our Lord Jesus Christ; and whenever Chris- 
tianity makes any serious inroad into the citadel 
of Islam, it may possibly be through the gateway 
of those Koranic passages which acknowledge 
and confirm, rather than deny and oppose, the 
supreme and central facts of the Christian re- 
ligion. It need scarcely be said that Confucian- 
ism is not a religion centering in supernatural 
occurrences, but is rather a collection of instruc- 
tions in regard to social ethics. Hinduism cer- 
tainly does not center in any creative personality 
living at a definite time and miraculously reveal- 
ing God's truth and love to men. It is well 
known that nothing is more averse to the Hindu 
spirit than definite history. 

What has impressed itself most deeply upon 
the first and every succeeding generation of 
Christians has been the person of the historic 
Christ as revealed in the Gospels. The case is 
not similar with Buddhism, although it is indeed 



CHARACTER OF CHRISTIANITY. 255 

more of a personal religion than the others. 
Buddhism is a system of ethics rather than a 
divine evangel. "Christ's mission, even more 
than His message; His deeds of love and mercy, 
His patient suffering, His self-sacrificing death, 
above all, His resurrection from the dead, and 
His subsequent ascension into heaven, — this was 
the subject-matter of the proclamation first made 
by His followers to the world. On the other 
hand, it was the system thought out by Buddha, 
the discourses which he delivered, and his rules 
for the guidance of his disciples that appeared to 
them of paramount importance. They thought 
of Him mainly as the teacher, whereas the 
primary conception of the early Christians was 
of our Lord as the Saviour, who had accom- 
plished, not merely taught, the salvation of the 
world." It is well known that we have no life 
of Buddha. The main divisions of the Buddhist 
canon are discourses, the rules of discipline, and 
metaphysics. In the fragmentary notices of his 
personal history, we find that information is 
given "solely as an introduction to a conversa- 
tion or discourse ; here, as elsewhere, the system 
obscures the man." The gentle sage of Asia 
lived and died, we know not exactly when, for 
the date of his death is placed by some scholars 
in the year 543 B.C., and by others in the years 
477, 430, 420, 412, or 370. The working force 
of Buddhism is not found in the life about which 
so little is known. When the early preachers of 



256 CHRISTIANITY, THE WORLD-RELIGION. 

"Nirvana and the Law," journeyed in their 
saffron robes from land to land, they told the 
world of the eight-fold path to enlightenment, 
of the maxims which Gautama uttered, of his 
regulations for the discipline of his disciples; and 
their reverence for the Indian saint was primarily 
for him as a teacher, and was not like the wor- 
shipful devotion of the early Christian for his 
Saviour, who came from the bosom of the God- 
head to the rough and cruel deathbed of the 
Cross, and who, lying down in the grave, burst 
the stony sepulchre and came forth with the 
light of immortality upon his white and radiant 
brow. 

Thus we have seen, that the Christian faith 
alone is proclaimed as primarily a religion of his- 
toric fact; neither Confucianism nor Buddhism 
nor Mohammedanism is built upon a similar 
foundation, and that religion, which is in many 
respects greater than all the other non-Christian 
faiths, Hinduism, is likewise unhistoric. Its 
sublime and mystic ideas, and its innumerable 
idolatries, are associated, it is true, with legends 
of gods and heroes, but these legends "live no 
longer in the faith of reason," even in the land 
which gave them birth, while the Christian 
Church, in all its great divisions, and most of its 
minor sects, is practically united in that historic 
faith which is embodied in the so-called Apos- 
tles' Creed. When men ask Christian disciples 
to unite with the believers in other religions on 



CHARACTER OF CHRISTIANITT. 257 

the basis of what all have in common, or what 
is fundamental to all, the just answer is: "We 
are glad to co-operate for common, ethical pur- 
poses, and we believe the co-operation will be 
much larger and more fraternal than it ever has 
been, but what is fundamental with Christianity 
is that which is distinctive to it — its supernatural 
history." This is the one thing peculiar to our 
faith ; it has gone to men from the beginning, it 
goes to men now, with a history revealing divine 
incarnation and redemption as verifiable facts; it 
presents that history as centering in a matchless 
person ; it furnishes the amplest evidence that 
Jesus the Christ lived, suffered, died, and rose 
again, thereby laying His hands with divine au- 
thentication on His messages of mercy. It holds 
up the life, character, and work of One who has 
moulded already the mightiest nations to His will, 
who is to-day the supreme figure and force in 
the domain of religion, and who towers higher 
and higher above the loftiest intellects, and the 
largest souls. Christianity discloses the advan- 
tage of a historical over a purely philosophical 
faith — the advantage of authority, of interest, 
of adaptability, of trustworthiness, of spiritual 
power. Christianity, a religion of facts, is not 
wanting in doctrine, in ethics, and philosophy. 
It has a philosophy, perhaps as deep and com- 
prehensive as that which lies in the vast world of 
the Hindu scriptures, and certainly much less 
ethereal and infinitely more consistent; and it 



258 CHRISTIANITY, THE WORLD-RELIGION. 

presents an ethics confessedly more vigorous, 
vitalizing, and complete than that which was 
taught by Buddha, the most famous of all Hin- 
du sages. But Christianity is primarily a series 
of miraculous and redemptive occurrences, em- 
bodying a divinely perfect ethics, verities of 
celestial fragrance and potency, and all these 
are wrapped up and made life-giving by the 
divinely perfect Teacher and Redeemer who is 
set forth in the Gospels. I know that some 
scholars of our time, possessed by the philosophy 
which rejects the supernatural, have eliminated 
from their faith what has always been considered 
the very essence of Christianity, and have still 
clung affectionately to the ethics of Jesus. The 
scheme of Hegelianism, revised or unrevised, is 
to reject the supernatural in history, in order to 
get easy, unembarrassed sweep for its idea of 
growth and development. But what, after a 
short life, has been in Germany, England, 
France, America, the usual history of move- 
ments within the Church which have cast out 
the supernatural? Free religion, spiritualism, 
irreligion, rankest unbelief, and materialism, dis- 
trust of all schemes that imply God, — these are 
some of the natural results, appearing after a 
short course of development from a plan of spir- 
itual life which denies the supernatural in Jesus 
and in His Church. "Without miracle and mys- 
tery, in the true religious sense, no revelation of 
God is thinkable." "A religion without miracle 



CHARACTER OF CHRISTIANITY. 259 

may turn out to be a religion without God." 
Some have gone with their new Christian Gos- 
pel to the working people of great cities, and 
have accomplished something, but not much in 
comparision with the historic achievements of 
the original Gospel among the poor. There is 
no reason for believing that a message which 
can give no assurance of divine love and forgive- 
ness, which sinks Jesus to the level of any noble 
philanthropist, which cannot point with any cer- 
tain faith to a world of blessedness beyond, will 
bring to sad hearts the comfort, and to broken 
lives the help, of that Gospel, which is preached 
to-day in the thousand missions of the world's 
great cities. 

From the beginning of Christian history until 
now there has been substantial agreement in the 
Church as to the supernatural personality of 
Christ, as to the signs which He and His apos- 
tles carried with them, and as to His glorious 
resurrection; and out of this catholic, historic 
faith of the Church, has sprung a certain distinc- 
tive and noble type of Christian character. It 
seems plain to so wise a man as Mr. Gladstone, 
that if you cut away this faith and destroy these 
roots, the distinctive type of character will soon 
die out. As that type is not found where Chris- 
tianity has never been, why should it continue 
when Christianity is uprooted? Now that the 
Gospel of Christ has created great areas on this 
planet "where a decent man can live in decency, 



260 CHRISTIANITY, THE WORLD-RELIGION. 

comfort, and security, educating his children un- 
spoiled and unpolluted; where age is reverenced, 
infancy protected, manhood respected, woman- 
hood honored, and human life held in due re- 
gard, ' ' — how do we know that when the essential 
elements of the Christian Gospel, as Paul and 
Luther, as Pascal, Chalmers, Bishop Heber, 
Edwards, Wesley, Thomas Arnold, Spurgeon, 
Robertson, Dr. Duff, and Livingstone would have 
deemed them, are exscinded, it will continue, age 
after age, to work its old-time wonders? Because 
a number of scholarly men and women have been 
led to accept a philosophy of history and nature, 
which forbids them to believe in the miraculous, 
shall we therefore call upon the Church, girding 
itself for triumphs to-day as never before, com- 
passing all lands with its missionary army ; shall 
we call upon the Church to reconstruct its the- 
ology by taking out of it what the Church, in all 
its branches, has always believed? Such an ap- 
peal is a summons to discord. It is asking a 
victorious army, in the thick of battle, to throw 
away its long-tried weapons and manufacture 
new ones. Two mistakes are made by the dis- 
ciples of other religions regarding Christianity. 
In the first place they so look at the divisions of 
Christendom as to forget the spiritual and intel- 
lectual unity which prevails with regard to what 
is fundamental — namely, the truth of the Gospel 
history and the conditions of salvation. In the 
second place, the non-Christian faiths overrate 



CHARACTER OF CHRISTIANITY. 26 1 

the weight and importance of the philosophic 
dissent from historic Christianity in Christian 
lands. Comparatively speaking that dissent 
represents fragments, asteroids — and not Jupiter, 
Saturn, and the Sun. 

This conflict within the pale of Christendom, 
or rather within the regions where Christianity 
has extended itself, between faith in the historic 
character of the Gospels and unbelief, is not 
new. Every generation goes over, with more or 
less of repetition, the ground which has been 
tramped for ages, and it would seem that every 
wise and healthy mind, in coming to a settled 
belief, must take into account, at least, the gen- 
eral conviction of the centuries. Now the 
solemn voice of the Christian ages, whether it 
comes to us in the claim which Jesus made, that 
his miraculous work bore witness of Him as sent 
from God ; or whether it be the earnest declara- 
tion of Paul in the Epistles, which even Strauss 
and Baur and Renan affirm that Paul wrote 
within thirty years after the death of Christ, that 
Jesus rose from the dead ; or whether it be that 
which comes from the early-formed and gener- 
ally-accepted Apostles' Creed, — that voice, which 
was not smothered in the catacombs or silenced 
in the Colosseum ; which persecution could not 
choke in Clement and Polycarp and Tertullian; 
which has sounded in Christian hymns or martyr- 
testimonies from the days when the smoke of 
heathen sacrifice rose from the seven hills bv the 



262 CHRISTIANITY, THE WORLD-RELIGION. 

Tiber; and which finally burst from the lips of 
Chrysostom in the capital of an empire which 
had chosen the Cross of the Galilean peasant as its 
triumphal battle-sign; that solemn voice of the 
centuries, which breaks on our ears from the 
ancient Councils of Nice and Chalcedon, and 
from the latter assemblies of Dort and Augsburg, 
from Greek basilica, and Romanist temple, and 
Protestant cathedral; heard amid the ranks of 
Crusaders storming Jerusalem, and Puritans 
fighting for liberty on the plains of England, and 
Pilgrims touching the icy shores of the New 
World ; coming to us from the cloister of the 
recluse and the study of the scholar, sounding be- 
neath the storied arches of Westminster, and 
among the dusky tribes on distant shores, who 
have learned to sing the faith of all the Christian 
ages; that voice which breathes its grandeurs into 
the music of Handel's oratorios and whispers ce- 
lestial solace into the heart of dying believers; a 
voice speaking to-day from nearly all the thou- 
sand Christian colleges of the world, and from 
most of its four hundred thousand pulpits, and 
which gives no sign of being silenced, — every- 
where affirms as its grand first announcement, 
that the Christian Gospel is a disclosure of God 
manifest in the flesh, in Jesus Christ, His only 
Son, who lived a sinless life and displayed His 
divine nature and commission in miraculous 
signs from heaven, crowning all by His resur- 
rection from the dead. 



CHARACTER OF CHRISTIANITY. 263 

There are those who do not believe in the 
supernatural origin of Christianity, and on whom 
is imposed the task of explaining away the Gos- 
pel narratives on the ground of fraud or delusion; 
of trying to break the force of the testimony 
sealed with the heroic, unselfish, suffering lives 
and martyr deaths of those who declared that 
they were witnesses of Christ's supernatural 
signs and of His risen person. To them is given 
the task which has perplexed and baffled the 
sceptical scholarship of a hundred years. To 
that scholarship we owe a large debt of grati- 
tude. It has widened our knowledge of the first 
century. It has removed much of error and 
uncertainty. It has conducted its investigations 
with amazing ingenuity and ample learning; 
but, "starting from a philosophy which forbade 
it to accept much of the substance of the Gospel 
narrative," the sceptical investigators have 
proved themselves often to be the least trust- 
worthy historical critics. As Mr. Balfour has well 
said : "It has been a great, though common, error 
to describe these learned efforts as examples of 
the unbiased application of historic methods to 
historic documents. It will be more correct to 
say that they are endeavors, by the unstinted 
employment of an elaborate, critical apparatus, 
to force the testimony of existing records into 
conformity with theories, on the truth or falsity 
of which it is for philosophy, not history, to 
pronounce." The unbelievers must give a 



264 CHRISTIANITY, THE WORLD-RELIGION. 

rational account of the person of Jesus on the 
theory of His being a fallible, and sometimes 
deluded and imperfect man — an undertaking in 
which Renan made such a brilliantly grotesque 
failure — they must explain away the universal 
Christian faith in Christ's resurrection, a faith on 
which even Strauss acknowledged that the 
Church was built ; a faith which was not de- 
stroyed by the Jewish authorities in Jerusalem, 
not because they were unwilling, but because they 
were unable. They must tell us how the early 
Church, with no appeal to make, like Moham- 
medanism, to pride and human passions, but 
with lowliness and purity as its distinctive vir- 
tues, and, as they assert, with no supernatural 
signs attesting their message, and beset by such 
constant and remorseless antagonism on every 
side, was not at once extinguished. After their 
failure in this undertaking (and the confusion 
and contradiction in their ranks, and the steady 
advance and conquest of historic Christianity in- 
dicate a failure), men are apparently more will- 
ing to ponder the evidences on which Christian 
faith is built, and which have proved so impreg- 
nable. 

It is not a marvel that so many Jews and 
others rejected the claims of the crucified Naza- 
rene Prophet : that so many accepted them is the 
wonder. "The reception of Christianity by 
them," it has been wisely said, "shows prejudice 
overcome by something, and the question is, by 



CHARACTER OF CHRISTIANITY. 265 

what?'' The undeviating Christian faith has 
been that prejudice and opposition were over- 
come in part, at least, by the supernatural ac- 
complishments of the early Christian message. 

The survey which we have made together of 
the faiths of mankind, of their strange mixtures 
of truth and error, has indicated that man needs 
such a revelation from God as has come through 
Jesus Christ. The dim guesses of the non-Chris- 
tian world have not contented the mind. The 
fatal deficiency, it has been said, of Plato's doc- 
trine of immortality is "that he does not know." 
"We will wait," said Plato, "for one, be it a 
God or God-inspired man, to teach us our re- 
ligious duties, and as Athene, in Homer, says to 
Diomed, take away the darkness from our eyes." 
And again he exclaims: "We must lay hold of 
the best human opinion, in order that, borne by 
it as on a raft, we may sail over the dangerous 
sea of life, unless we can find a stronger boat or 
some word of God which will more surely and 
safely carry us." The sacred literatures show 
clearly that men have needed more certain, au- 
thoritative guidance. They need to know more 
fully the character of God, especially in that 
which is hardest to credit to Him, mercy. They 
need to escape from the terrible guilt and slavery 
of sin and to find one able to deliver. They 
need some solace or relief from the awful pres- 
sure of human sorrow. The New Testament re- 
veals the divine character as embodied in Jesus 



266 CHRISTIANITT, THE WORLD-RELIGION. 

Christ. It illumines and makes surer all the 
truths of God, dimly revealed in the light of 
nature. 3 It provides a remedy for the malady of 
sin, which the testing of centuries has shown to 
be adequate. It brings God home to our affec- 
tions in the person of His dear Son. It lifts a 
future world, with all its vast and vivifying 
power, before the vision of the human soul. It 
links the practice of the most perfect ethics with 
devotion to the person and kingdom of a divine 
Redeemer. Such merciful and lofty purposes on 
the part of God were, not without the most rea- 
sonable warrant, accompanied by signs from 
heaven attesting the messenger or messengers 
commissioned to first teach the heavenly doc- 
trine. 

Canon Gore has defined a miracle as "an 
event in physical nature which makes unmistak- 
ably plain the presence and direct action of God 
working for a moral end."* "Miracles," he 
says, "are God's protests against man's blind- 
ness to Himself, protests in which he violates a 
superficial uniformity in the interests of deeper 
law." "If," he adds, "God is personal, if His 
being is better expressed in human will and 
character than in mechanical motion and uncon- 
scious law, miracles with adequate cause are 
neither impossible nor unnatural." Of course, 
if God is immanent in nature, a miracle cannot 

3 Appendix, Lecture VI, Note 3. 

4 Appendix, Lecture VI, Note 4. 



CHARACTER OF CHRISTIANITY. 267 

rightly be called an' interference. It is certainly 
irrational to say that miracles are events without 
an adequate cause. God is their cause, and He 
surely is adequate. 5 Why should any thought- 
ful man feel that the Author of nature can never 
act for moral ends on what He has created, 
especially if He has overwhelmingly important 
reasons for such action ; if He wishes to show 
that He is working in the world not as a blind 
force, but as a personal will, having the highest 
moral ends in view? We, ourselves, for com- 
monest practical ends, act on nature in such a 
way as to overcome or modify her laws. We 
throw a stone into the air, and temporarily over- 
come gravitation : we ride in a car, and forces 
under human control overcome inertia. As one 
has said: "Whoever bakes a loaf of bread brings 
into being a thing which the bare forces of na- 
ture, not controlled and assisted by man's will, 
could not have produced." If the human will 
may thus act, why not the divine will? Mr. 
Gladstone has well said: "It can be neither phi- 
losophical nor scientific to proclaim the impossi- 
bility of miracles, until philosophy or science 
shall have determined a limit beyond which this 
extraneous force of will cannot act upon or de- 
flect the natural order." 

It is unreasonable to attack miracles on the 
ground of their improbability, coupled with the 
probability that the testimony to them is un- 

6 Appendix, Lecture VI, Note 5. 



268 CHRISTIANITT, THE WORLD-RELIGION. 

trustworthy. Many improbable things are all the 
while taking place. Has not Whately shown 
that the history of Bonaparte contains a much 
"greater amount of gross and glaring improba- 
bilities than any equal portion of Scripture his- 
tory?" All will agree that the old Greek spoke 
wisely who said, "It is probable that many 
improbable things will happen." Our lives are 
filled with such events. This is a wondrous uni- 
verse, and it may be no more an antecedent 
improbability that supernatural signs should 
inhere in God's revelation of His redeeming love 
to the world than that men two thousand miles 
apart should speak to each other, or that the 
same subtle force should light and lift and drive 
a car, or that Lisbon should have been suddenly 
destroyed by an earthquake, or that the mid- 
night should be illumined by suns of inconceiva- 
ble magnitude and unimaginable remoteness. 

But we are told by Professor Huxley (and by 
Hume before him) that "human testimony to 
miracles is not to be trusted." He did not 
reject miracles because they are so mysterious 
and improbable, for, as he wrote to an English 
divine, "The mysteries of the Church are child's 
play compared to the mysteries of nature. The 
doctrine of the Trinity," he says, "is not more 
puzzling than the necessary antinomies of phy- 
sical speculation; virgin procreation and resusci- 
tation from apparent death are ordinary phe- 
nomena for the naturalist." Therefore, the only 



CHARACTER OF CHRISTIANITY. 269 

question at issue is this: Is the testimony to the 
Gospel miracles conclusive; are the evidences 
that the Apostle told the truth sufficient to re- 
move all reasonable doubt? And surely this 
question is not to be answered by impugning 
human testimony in general, for every one of us 
believes many improbable things on human testi- 
mony. Because some testimony is likely to be 
false are we to conclude that all testimony is? 
Some books are trash. Plato's Republic and 
Shakespeare's Tempest are some books. There- 
fore, these great works of the two best heads in 
two thousand years are trash ! The scepticism 
which lumps together in indiscriminate condem- 
nation and distrust the weak and doubtful testi- 
mony to the so-called miracles of mediaeval 
times, and the testimony to our Lord's resur- 
rection, which the Apostles sealed with their 
blood, is not grounded on rationality. That 
poetical pessimist, the late Matthew Arnold, 
may have concluded that historical Christianity 
rests on a fairly tale, but his greater father, 
Thomas Arnold, a man of sounder judgment, 
who made himself a great name in sifting the 
legendary from the true in the history of ancient 
Rome — this man, according to Dean Stanley, 
"placed the supernatural inspiration of the sacred 
writers on an imperishable historical basis. ' ' And 
Niebuhr wrote that "the fundamental fact of mir- 
acles must be conceded, unless we adopt the not 
merely incomprehensible but absurd hypothesis 



270 CHRISTIANITT, THE WORLD-RELIGION. 

that the Holiest was a deceiver and His follow- 
ers either dupes or liars." But dupes or liars 
could not have given us such a portrait of per- 
fect personality as shines from the Gospels. 
Matthew and John, the publican and the fisher- 
man of Galilee, unless painting from life, would 
have left some action or omission to act to stain 
the fair picture of an incomparable being, "per- 
fect beyond what the most gifted impostors could 
fabricate and beyond what the most enthusiastic 
fanatics could have dreamed." We should not 
be ready to eulogize every man as a philosopher, 
simply because he endeavors to place a miracle 
recorded in the Gospels, the chief book of the 
world, in connection with such a character as 
that of the Universal Man and Saviour, in con- 
nection with such a revelation of divine truth 
and love as that which fulfills and completes all 
the imperfect and scattered messages of al) 
eai til's seers and prophets; a miracle, recorded 
by several men, who were known to be eye-wit- 
nesses, and re-affirmed by many others who had 
personal knowledge of the event — men who have 
every air of candor and every mark of good 
sense, and who made this, and other similar 
miracles the substance of their preaching and 
testimony through lives of self-sacrifice ending 
in martyrdom ; to place such a miracle, I say, on 
the same level of improbability or imposture with 
an isolated portent, recorded in some mediaeval 
chronicle by some one who heard that such and 



CHARACTER OF CHRISTIANITY. 271 

such a thing occurred, or claimed to have seen 
it, but about whose careless testimony there 
gathers no such a combination, such a steel- 
linked net of weighty probabilities, arguments, 
evidences, concurrent, independent, mutually 
supporting, confirming, and conclusive, as has 
been shown over and over again in connection 
with the Gospel narratives. To rank the resur- 
rection of Jesus with the story of a ''centaur 
trotting down Regent street, in London," and 
to compare such an isolated and monstrous and 
unmeaning phenomenon with the event which 
gave the Church of Christ its being and its 
hopes of immortality, and to attempt to dis- 
parage the testimony to the resurrection by ask- 
ing what testimony would make the appearance 
of the centaur credible to us, is only to show 
that intellectual smartness does not always go 
hand in hand with moral depth and serene saga- 
city. 

I have said before that we have no authentic 
life of Buddha; but we have three, and, if we 
add the Gospel of John, four authentic lives of 
Jesus the Christ. John's authorship of the fourth 
Gospel has been seriously attacked only in the 
last sixty years; and, after such defenses of its 
Johnanine authorship as those of Weiss, Meyer, 
Godet, Ewald, Lightfoot, Professor Ezra Ab- 
bott, Westcott, Sanday, and a score of others, 
there is every reason to believe that the author 
was a Christian of Jewish origin, that he was a 



272 CHRISTIANITY, THE WORLD-RELIGION. 

Jew of Palestine, that he was a contemporary of 
Jesus, that he was an eye-witness of what he 
recorded, that he was the disciple whom Jesus 
loved, that he was John, the son of Zebedee. 
Sceptical scholarship has been forced to put the 
proposed date of its authorship farther back than 
Baur thought necessary. It is not congruous 
with any literature which we have from the 
second century. And no one has answered the 
question, How could a book of this kind be 
palmed off on the churches, including the Church 
of Ephesus, where John lived, so soon after his 
death? If he did not write the Gospel that 
bears his name, how did these disciples in the 
churches come to believe he did? Eusebius was 
aware of no dispute regarding its authorship. 
Origen accounts it among the only undisputed 
Gospels of the Church of God under the whole 
heavens. There is no defect in the external 
evidence, and it bears the marks of being an auto- 
biographic record of a profound and affectionate 
soul who had come to believe, and who desired 
others to believe, in the supernatural nature 
of the Messiah. If, as the testimony of John, 
it were not so powerful in establishing the celes- 
tial authority of Christ's mission, the anti-super- 
naturalists would not have so violently assailed 
it. Traveling back toward the Apostolic age, 
we find these four books quoted in numerous 
writers as the works of those whose names they 
bear; we find them cherished by the early Church 



CHARACTER OF CHRISTIANITY. 273 

which had no means of knowing whence they 
came; we find them distinguished from other 
Christian literature and immeasurably superior 
to it ; we find them affirmed to be coeval with 
the churches themselves; we find the same evi- 
dences, only more definite and numerous and 
strong, for believing them to be genuine, that 
we have for believing that Tacitus and Livy 
wrote the works which bear their names. And 
opening these brief, artless narratives, where the 
silences are as wonderful as the things said, we 
find, as one has written, that "they abound in 
allusions to places, local customs, characteristic 
ideas, and feelings, such as no counterfeiter, 
writing at a later day, could have brought into 
the narratives." 

It was not until six hundred years after Bud- 
dha lived that the Tri-pitaka, (boxes or baskets), 
were committed to writing in the Pali language. 
In a word, as it has been said, "Buddhism knows 
nothing of sacred documents or a canon of 
Scripture contemporary with its first disciples." 
Professor Romanes calls our attention to the sig- 
nal victory for Christianity in the great textual 
battle of the last hundred years, making certain 
the publication of the Synoptics, at least, within 
the first century. The early date of Paul's great 
Epistles was, of course, the death of the myth- 
ical theory. Moreover, myths belong to the 
dawn and not the decadence of nations, and the 
Jewish disciples, if the myth-making fancy had 



274 CHRISTIANITY, THE WORLD-RELIGION. 

been brought to life, would have created a Christ 
essentially different from Him who appears in 
the Gospels and who disapproved so many of 
their cherished ideals. 

Now there are some things that all will 
admit : — that Christianity is probably the greatest 
fact with which the world has to do ; that it had 
an origin ; that it originated with Jesus, a man 
springing from a nation that was expecting a 
Messiah; that one Saul of Tarsus, a persecutor 
of Christians, was persuaded that Jesus had risen 
from the dead, and gave his life to publishing 
this new faith; that the Christians so multiplied, 
in spite of attacks on every hand, that in the reign 
of Nero, in the year sixty-four, a great number, 
as Tacitus tells us, were killed or tortured by 
that monster in Rome; that in the year ill, 
according to Pliny, these Christians were so 
numerous in Pontus and Bithynia that the 
heathen altars were nearly deserted, and that 
early in the fourth century Christianity became 
the religion of the Roman Empire. It is ad- 
mitted, that the Gospels and the Acts are his- 
tories, giving a generally truthful account of the 
beginnings of Christianity, leaving out as dis- 
puted the miraculous elements. But the mir- 
aculous elements alone are adequate to account 
for the conquering energy of the disciple's faith 
and the success which followed the tremendous 
claims of Jesus. They would naturally belong 
to the powers and the mission of such a person 



CHARACTER OF CHRISTIANITY. 275 

as Christ is represented to have been. He cer- 
tainly claimed to be the divine Messiah. The 
claims of Buddha and Mohammed were on 
an infinitely lower level. He asserted super- 
natural authority. And how could He reveal 
Himself so as to be known as the Messiah, un- 
less by some supernatural tokens, and how could 
the Apostles, except by the same evidences, 
prove His Messiahship? As one has said: "Here 
were no victories, no conquests, no revolutions, 
no surprising elevation of fortune, no achieve- 
ments of valor, of strength, or of policy to ap- 
peal to, no discoveries in any art or science, no 
great efforts of learning or genius to produce. 
A Galilean peasant is announced to the world as 
the Divine Lawgiver. A young man of mean 
condition, of a private and simple life, and who 
had wrought no deliverance for the Jewish na- 
tion, was declared to be their Messiah. This, 
without ascribing to Him, at the same time, some 
proofs of His mission (and what other but super- 
natural truths could there be?), was too absurd a 
claim to be either imagined or attempted or 
credited." The system of truth which originated 
with a Jewish Carpenter and a few fishermen 
could not have made its way to such wide, early 
acceptance, against the hostility of Jerusalem, 
Athens, and Rome, against synagogue and philos- 
ophic school and armed antagonism, against all 
the external forces of imperial civilization, and 
against the obdurate wickedness of the human 



276 CHRISTIANITT, THE WORLD-RELIGION. 

heart, unless it had been accompanied by the 
signature of the Almighty. The conquest of 
Mohammedanism and Buddhism may be ex- 
plained in other ways, but not that of Chris- 
tianity. 

In looking at the historic conditions of our 
faith we must not forget that these biographies, 
which are the literary basis of Christianity, give 
us the impression of truthfulness, and so strong 
an impression that frequently the best tonic for 
enfeebled faith is to read and ponder with rever- 
ent heart, these simple and self-evidencing nar- 
ratives. The Gospels give no impression that 
the writers were either weak-minded, fanciful, or 
untruthful. The Church challenges attention to 
these records. "It is the test of Christianity's 
legitimate tenure, that it can encourage free in- 
quiry into its title-deeds." These records were 
given to the Church in an age of civilization, of 
clear and searching inquiry; and the impression 
of truthfulness which the Gospels make is 
always deepened when one turns from them to 
read the legends of Hercules and Krishna, the 
grotesque stories in the sacred book of the 
Shinto, the confused accounts of the life of 
Buddha, and the accretion of myths which fol- 
lowed the performances of mediaeval miracle- 
working saints or the so-called Apocryphal Gos- 
pels, where the writers give reckless scope to 
their fancies in ascribing fictitious marvels to 
Jesus of Nazareth. I scarcely see how better 



CHARACTER OF CHRISTIAN/TV. 277 

witnesses of historic fact could have been chosen 
than those whom Jesus summoned to His side 
and trained for their life-mission. "They are 
qualified as witnesses because free from all pre- 
occupation with ideas and systems; they were 
plain men who could receive the impress of 
facts, who could tell a simple, plain tale, and 
show by their lives how much they believed it; 
and they were trained to be witnesses. Jesus 
Christ intended His Gospel to rest on facts; and 
in correspondence with this intention the whole 
stress in the Apostolic Church was laid on wit- 
ness." Then remember how the evidence of the 
four evangelists is strengthened by the impor- 
tant testimony of the apostle Paul, who, in his 
Epistles, which are earlier than the Gospels, nar- 
rates in detail the various appearances of Christ 
after the resurrection, and refers to many of the 
chief facts of the Gospels as well known and uni- 
versally received among churches reaching all the 
way from Italy to the heart of Asia Minor. 
Paul, writing in the midst of the men who knew 
Christ personally, nearly five hundred of whom 
were living witnesses of the resurrection, whose 
names were known and who could be found and 
questioned, this Apostle, in various literature 
which cannot be disputed, gives his mighty ad- 
ditional testimony to the truth of the Gospel 
History. 

How can this universal faith in the historic 
character of the life and resurrection of Jesus as 



278 CHRISTIANITY, THE WORLD-RELIGION. 

we have it, this faith which permeated the early 
Church, be explained without granting the truth 
of the Gospel narrative? A recent writer has 
said that "several have tried their hands at a 
solution of the hard problem, each in turn 
criticising his predecessor's theory, and alto- 
gether by their mutual criticisms making the 
work of refuting sceptical views on this subject 
a comparatively easy task for the apologist." 
On the eve of the crucifixion the Church was virtu- 
ally annihilated. The disciples were scattered, 
fearful, hopeless. On the day of Pentecost the 
Church is victorious, uplifted, having a world- 
victory in its heart of hopeful faith. During 
these fifty days "something happened" to work 
the mighty transformation; "something hap- 
pened" to turn cowards into heroes, shirks into 
apostles; "something happened" to lift a com- 
pany of timid, heart-broken men and women into 
the regenerators of mankind ; whose lines of spir- 
itual energy have gone out into all the earth, 
whose arms of loving force have toppled down 
ancient systems, girded the world with hands of 
splendor and lifted torches of spiritual light on the 
mountains of Europe, America, India, China, 
Japan, Africa, which have become the beacon- 
fires of a universal faith! What that "some- 
thing" was, no Christian on the earth doubted 
on the day of Pentecost. The Church believed 
with all its heart, and proclaimed with tongues 
of fire, that Jesus had risen from the dead. 



CHARACTER OF CHRISTIANITY. 279 

Primitive Christianity cannot be explained with- 
out this belief. Channing has said: "A history 
received by a people as true, not only gives us 
the testimony of the writer, but the testimony 
of the nation among whom it finds credit." 
The earliest disciples, in the capital of Judaism, 
appealed to the enemies of Christ for the truth 
of Christ's miracles; and this appeal was not 
contradicted by the Jews, as it unquestionably 
would have been had these miracles been an in- 
vention of a few followers of Christ. Peter said 
on the day of Pentecost, within seven weeks 
from the time of Christ's resurrection, "Ye men 
of Israel, hear these words: Jesus of Nazareth, 
a man approved of God unto you by mighty 
works, and wonders, and signs, which God did 
by Him in the midst of you, even as ye your- 
selves know." 

In his two letters to the Church in Corinth, in 
his letter to the Church in Rome, in his letter to 
the Church in Galatia, Paul calls attention to 
the fact of Christ's victory over the grave as the 
central fact of faith and of life. The truth is that 
the life-blood of every book in the New Testa- 
ment is the resurrection of Jesus Christ. In the 
four Epistles of Paul referred to, and which re- 
morseless criticism, has left untouched, letters 
written within about twenty-five years of the 
death of Christ, letters which are, in time, as 
near to the resurrection of Jesus as we are to the 
close of the Franco-German war, Paul communi- 



280 CHRISTIANITT, THE WORLD-RELIGION. 

cates with the churches in Asia, Italy, and Greece, 
among whom the fact of Christ's resurrection 
was unchallenged. This is a part of the historic 
foundation on which Christendom is built. It is 
fortunate that men have tried to undermine it, 
because these attempts have not only shown the 
impregnability of our rock, but they have called 
the attention of the Church away from its 
ecclesiastical divisions to Him who is the unify- 
ing factor in Christendom, and who is our 
strength, and life, and common heritage. All 
the explanations by which the materialists and 
rationalists would explain away this supreme 
event, the various theories propounded and urged 
with subtlety and ingenuity, to the effect that 
Christ did not die, but that His ghastly, emaci- 
ated body, just recovering from its swoon, came 
forth on the third day to inspire his stricken fol- 
lowers and make them feel that He was the 
glorious Lord of Life; or that His body was 
stolen by the disciples, who founded the Church 
on fraud ; or that the body was stolen by His 
enemies, who refused to stamp out the early faith 
in the resurrection, as they might easily have 
done, and as, in their merciless hate, they cer- 
tainly would have done; or that the risen Jesus 
was only a fancy created by the imagination of 
the hysterical Mary Magdalene, or was a crea- 
ture of the faith of the other disciples, who felt 
that their hero could not die, — all these, and 
other theories, do not explain ; they signally fail 



CHARACTER OF CHRISTIANITY. 281 

to account for the intense, invincible, primitive 
faith, and leave the early history of the Church 
an unsolved enigma. This may be said, even 
of the theory of Keim, who admits that the 
appearances of Christ were not hallucinations, 
and who claims that Jesus produced, from His 
spiritual state, manifestations which the Apostles 
and others mistook for bona fide corporeal mani- 
festations! He gave them spiritual apparitions 
to assure them that He was still alive; sent them 
telegrams, as it were, and thus cheered them, 
and stirred in them new hope." Of course, 
this telegram hypothesis goes," as Dr. Bruce 
has said, "beyond the limits of naturalism," but 
the theory "has the disadvantage of being 
obliged to tamper with the Gospel narratives, " 
and besides, it makes Christ responsible for de- 
ceiving his followers into believing the resurrec- 
tion a historic fact. "If the resurrection be an 
unreality, if the body that was nailed to the tree 
never came forth from the tomb, why send 
messages that were certain to cause the apostles, 
and through them, the whole Christian Church, 
to believe a lie? Truly, this is a poor founda- 
tion to build Christendom on, a bastard super- 
naturalism as objectional to unbelievers as the 
true supernaturalism of the Catholic creed, and 
having the additional drawback that it offers to 
faith, asking for bread, a stone." 

The early Church, believing with all its heart 
and soul in the great facts of the Gospel, would 



2S2 CHRISTIANITT, THE WORLD-RELIGION. 

not have braved and suffered so much for a his- 
torical uncertainty; such men and women would 
not have died for a guess or a ghostly vision or 
an idle tale. The rapid progress and triumph of 
the Church not only evidenced the fervor of 
their faith, but indirectly the truth of the history 
on which the Church's faith and life was founded. 
There probably never was so unequal a contest 
as that between Christianity and the Roman 
world. And when we ask why Christian men 
were so zealous and successful in spreading the 
new doctrine which brought them only disrepute ; 
why they had such self-denying enthusiasm, and 
were pervaded by such profound faith in immor- 
tality, and in that Christ who had brought life 
and immortality to light ; why in that age of 
utter selfishness, they were so loving and self- 
sacrificing; why they were so confident in regard 
to the future, when the world generally had be- 
come so sceptical; why they manifested such 
virtues, far above the men about them, and lived 
as brethren in their church-life in the midst of a 
hate-ridden world, and were able to mould at last 
the hard and cruel Roman Empire to their 
thoughts; we strike, immediately, their faith in 
that wonderful history which was the substance 
of their preaching, their belief in Christ's resur- 
rection, the supreme evidence of immortality; we 
strike their belief in a divine Person, who was 
their risen and redeeming King, to whom they 
were bound by a deathless love, who inspired in 



CHARACTER OF CHRISTIANITY. 283 

them every active and passive virtue, and before 
whose majesty all were equal and all should be 
loving. 

Whoever, by his philosophy, denies the pos- 
sibility of miracles, not only begs the question in 
advance, not only turns the early history of the 
Church "into a batch of insoluble problems," 
following the footsteps of men who have tried by 
miracles of interpretation to disprove and dis- 
place the miracles of Jesus, but he also darkens 
and narrows the sphere of his own thinking, the 
horizon of his own hopes, and gradually or sud- 
denly robs his soul of that divinest conception of 
God which has ever gladdened and glorified our 
race, a God revealed in Him of Nazareth. But 
that we cannot rationally tear out the miracles 
is evident from the fact that they are recorded 
with the same air of truthfulness and utter can- 
dor with the other events ; they are a chief part 
of books in which the writers, who are evidently 
not simpletons or frauds, relate many things to 
their own discredit, how they contended with 
their Master, how they quarreled, how they for- 
sook their Leader in His hour of trouble ; from the 
fact that when men invent the miraculous they 
fall into the silliness of the Apocryphal gospels, 
which are no more like the tone of the true ones 
than the Book of Mormon is like the Sermon on 
the Mount ; from the fact that many of the 
recorded sayings of Christ, which are evidently 
genuine, involve the reality of the miracles, as 



2S4 CHRISTIANITY, THE WORLD-RELIGION. 

where Jesus said, "Go and tell John the blind 
receive their sight, the lepers are cleansed, the 
dead are raised up;" from the fact that while 
miracles were valued as signs from heaven, they 
were not over-valued; from the fact that the 
Apostles and first witnesses, having every oppor- 
tunity to know the truth about Jesus, staked and 
gave up their lives in prolonged and solemn 
attestation of what they assuredly knew; from 
the fact that there was not among them or 
among the people, an easy and universal ten- 
dency to believe in the miraculous. The Apos- 
tles were slow to accept the chief of the miracles, 
the resurrection. The people were awe-struck 
by some of the miracles. "Since the world be- 
gan it has not been heard that any one opened 
the eyes of one born blind!" "No man," said 
the learned and cautious Nicodemus, "can do 
these miracles that Thou doest, except God be 
with Him." There was among the Apostles no 
appetite for the marvelous, no spirit that would 
beget credulity, as is plain from the wonderful 
simplicity and quietness of their records. If 
they had been forgers, or crazy for miracles, 
why did they record their own failure to work a 
miracle, and why not connect some miracle with 
so marvelous and great a prophet as John the 
Baptist, the herald of their Messiah, whose testi- 
mony they so highly valued? We cannot tear 
out the miracles from the Gospels without sink- 
ing the Apostles to the level of fools or deceivers, 



CHARACTER OF CHRISTIANITY. 285 

a conclusion which is irrational, both from what 
they have written, from the lives they lived, and 
from the incomparable grandeur of the portrait 
they have drawn of Jesus Christ. 

A thousand Shakespeares could not have im- 
agined such a character, and dupes and liars could 
not have given us such a picture of a perfect 
personality as shines from the evangelic pages. 
Those men of practical and almost prosaic minds 
were not equal to the work for which a hundred 
Dantes and Miltons would have been incom- 
petent, that is if Christ as portrayed in the Gos- 
pels, is not true to history. That character was 
evidently drawn from the life, and this alone "is 
sufficient to demonstrate the truth of the Gospel 
history." His presence in it for ever vindicates 
its reality. It was natural that such a being as 
the sinless Christ, who, with all his genuine hu- 
manity, manifestly did not belong to the world ; 
it was natural that the Holy One of Nazareth, 
whose touch is the life of our civilization to-day, 
whose spirit is the very breath of God, should 
do the works of the Father. Supernatural signs 
are the jewels which naturally adorn the brow of 
this celestial King. He who spake with the ten- 
derness, the holiness, and the authority of God, 
and with assertions of His super-human origin 
and power, is to be believed when He claims to 
do the works of heaven. 

Therefore, we conclude with Peter, that "we 
did not follow cunningly devised fables when we 



286 CHRISTIANITY, THE WORLD-RELIGION. 

made known to you the power and coming of 
our Lord Jesus Christ." And John adds: 
"That which was from the beginning, that which 
we have heard, that which we have seen with 
our eyes, that which we beheld, and our hands 
have handled, concerning the Word of Life 
— these things we write unto you," and the 
church, with firm voice, answers: We believe in 
God the Father Almighty, Maker of heaven and 
earth, and in Jesus Christ His only Son, our 
Lord, who was conceived by the Holy Ghost, 
born of the Virgin Mary, suffered under Pontius 
Pilate, was crucified, dead, and buried; He de- 
scended into Hades; the third day He arose 
again from the dead; he ascended into heaven, 
and sitteth at the right hand of God the Father 
Almighty; from thence he shall come to judge 
the quick and the dead. We believe in the 
Holy Ghost, the Holy Catholic Church, the 
Commmunion of Saints, the Forgiveness of sins, 
the Resurrection of the body, and the Life Ever- 
lasting." 

We believe that the forces which command 
the future of the world are already marshalled, 
and shall yet be harmonized, purified, and victori- 
ous. The creed of historic Christianity has 
known eighteen hundred years of discussion ; it 
has never known defeat, and it does not purpose 
now to revise its doctrine by abandoning the 
heart and brain of the Christian confession. 
The Church of God, built on the Incarnation 



CHARACTER OF CHRISTIANITY'. 2S7 

and Resurrection, and holding from her temple's 
topmost spire the Cross, has seen imperial do- 
mains, and hoary superstitions, and theologies of 
error, and ten thousand airy speculations disap- 
pear, while she steadily expands her sheltering 
walls, and opens her shining gates to encompass 
all nations. 

Oh, where are kings and empires now 

Of old that went and came? 
But Lord, thy Church is praying yet, 

A thousand years the same. 

We mark her goodly battlements, 

And her foundations strong, 
And hear within the solemn voice 

Of her unending song. 

Unshaken as eternal hills 

Immovable she stands, 
A mountain that shall fill the earth — 

A house not made with hands! 

I am grateful for the kind sympathy with 
which you have followed me over the mountain 
peaks and down into the valleys in our swift 
progress through this course of Lectures. I 
have endeavored to speak the truth in love. 
While setting forth the claims of Christianity, 
I have not intentionally done injustice to the 
teachings of Mohammed, to the ethics of Con- 
fucius, nor to whatever is true and beautiful in 
the sacred literatures of India. You will bear me 
witness that I have rejoiced in the excellences of 
doctrine taught by the prophets of many faiths. 
This Lectureship has endeavored to enter sympa- 



288 CHRISTIANITY, THE V/ORLD-RELIGION. 

thetically the heart "of the tired and dust-stained 
pilgrim praying earnestly to the thousand-handed 
goddess of mercy" at the shrines of Japan. It 
has looked for the true and good everywhere, 
and has seen in the less perfect religions prophe- 
cies of that glorious fullness of truth and grace 
found in the Christian Gospel. I have com- 
pared the kingdom and revelation of Christ to 
the majestic Cathedral of Cologne. If the great 
cathedral of historic Christianity, whose archi- 
tecture I have described to-day, enshrines the Son 
of God, then it is a temple which must cover the 
earth. If Christianity, as revealed in the Gos- 
pels, is true, then it must become universal. 

It is said that the Hindu girls make from the 
shell of the cocoanut a little boat, place a small 
lamp and flowers within it, and launch it on the 
Ganges. If it floats out of sight with its lamp 
still burning, the omen is propitious: if it sinks, 
the love of which it questions is ill-fated. 

Float on, float on, my haunted bark! Above the midnight 

tide, 
Bear softly o'er the waters dark the hopes that with thee 

glide. 
Float on, float on; thy freight is flowers, and every flower 

reveals 
The dreaming of my lonely hours, the hope my spirit feels. 

Float on, float on, thou shining lamp! The light of love is 

there; 
If lost beneath the waters deep, that love must then despair. 
Float on; beneath the moonlight float the sacred billows 

o'er. 
Ah! some kind spirit guides my boat, for it hath gained the 

shore! 



CHARACTER OF CHRISTIANITY. 2S9 

So Christian love has sent out its boat upon 
the Ganges and upon all the streams which glide 
by the mosques and temples and tombs of the 
land of the sun. The lamp of God's word is 
within that bark. It has been tossed on many 
rough waves, it has seen buried beneath the 
waters many saintly souls ; but it is surely guarded 
by Him who held of old the seven stars in His 
right hand, and who walketh now among the 
seven golden candlesticks of the churches. It 
shall touch millennial shores. 



THE WORLD'S PARLIAMENT OF 
RELIGIONS. 



God is no respecter of persons; but in every nation he 
that feareth Him and worketh righteousness is acceptable 
to Him. Acts x. 35. 

Not many events a century hence will be found to have 
exerted a more wide-spread influence than this coming 
together of the representatives of the world's religions. — 
President William R. Harper, D.D. 

I can think of nothing more impressive than such an 
assemblage of the representatives of all the children of our 
Heavenly Father, convened to tell each other what witness 
he has given them of Himself, what light He has afforded 
them in the awful mysteries of life and death. — Whittier. 

I dreamed 
That stone by stone I reared a sacred fane, 
A temple; neither Pagod, Mosque, nor Church, 
But loftier, simpler, always open-doored 
To every breath from Heaven; and Truth and Peace 
And Love and Justice came and dwelt therein. 

— Tennyson "Akbar's Dream." 
The results of this gathering will be more manifold 
than any single eye can trace; interest has been aroused, 
sympathy evoked, truth brought to light, devotion quick- 
ened, and the immense fact of the practical universality of 
religion and the vast diffusion of certain great primary ele- 
ments of faith has received a demonstration of significance 
such as it never won before. — Professor J. Estlin Car- 
penter, D.D., Oxford. 



SEVENTH LECTURE. 

THE WORLD'S PARLIAMENT OF RELIGIONS.* 

It has been my pleasure to speak to many 
hundreds of the Native Christians of India who 
represent in so large a measure the future of this 
wondrous land. When I remember the environ- 
ments of their lives, the inherited prejudices, the 
tyrannical caste-customs, the atmosphere of 
superstition and hostility, I regard these Chris- 
tian communities as more wonderful exhibitions 
of the power of God, our gracious Father and 
Creator, than the majestic heights of the Hima- 
layas; and I deem it one of the chief privileges 
of my visit to India that I am able in any meas- 
ure to bring encouragement and inspiration to 
these, my fellow-disciples, whose allegiance to 
Christ has often shown itself heroic. 

There is one theme of constant and vital inter- 
est to the people of India on which I have fre- 
quently spoken in other cities, and which is to 
be the subject of my remarks to-night. Having 
given time during four years to promoting, or- 
ganizing, and conducting the Parliament of Re- 

*An address before the Native Christian Conference of 
Madras. 

293 



294 CHRISTIANITY, THE WORLD-RELIGION. 

ligions, and to preparing and publishing its 
proceedings, and having had occasion and op- 
portunity to read what has been written about 
that meeting, in all parts of the world, I am able 
to speak of its purposes, spirit, and result with 
accurate knowledge. It seems important that 
correct information should be diffused, since mis- 
leading and ridiculously inaccurate reports are in 
some places current. At the very outset let it 
be understood that Christian America, as repre- 
sented by most of the leading Christian journals, 
and the great body of her more eminent Chris- 
tian scholars, has approved the Parliament from 
its inception until now. Nothing would appear 
more absurd to well-informed people in my own 
land and in Great Britain than the assertion that 
churches had been closed and Christian faith 
shaken by the advocacy in Western Christen- 
dom of the claims of Oriental faiths. There is 
nothing more grotesque and ridiculous in any of 
the mythologies than the rumors as to the wide 
acceptance in America and England of Oriental 
philosophies as substitutes for Christianity. The 
courtesy and curiosity of the American people 
have been misunderstood. The apostles of non- 
Christian faiths have been received with interest 
and with admiration, and they have done some- 
thing to quicken a desire for further knowledge 
of Eastern modes of thought. I believe that 
America will always be hospitable to persons and 
to ideas. But to affirm that American Christianity 



WORLD'S PARLIAMENT OF RELIGIONS. 295 

has been shaken by the Eastern speakers at the 
Parliament of Religions is as absurdly incredible 
to every one who knows, as to say that a child's 
hand has pushed back the current of the Ganges. 
Almost a half-million new members last year 
espoused the cause of Christ in the Protestant 
churches of the United States. The progress of 
the Christian faith in America has been as marked 
as ever before. And the interest in foreign 
missions and the willingness to give were never 
greater. And I have yet to hear that, notwith- 
standing the recent revival of Hinduism, Chris- 
tian progress in India has been less marked than 
formerly. I believe, with one of the Arcot 
missionaries, that the revival of Hinduism is "a. 
hopeful rather than a discouraging sign." Spir- 
itual lethargy ''has at last yielded to the power- 
ful influence of Christianity, and it is only 
natural that waking from their long sleep they 
should first turn to the old religion to satisfy 
their spiritual wants." I have believed, and I 
am glad to find my faith shared by so many mis- 
sionaries, that we should joyfully and thankfully 
recognize all elements of truth and goodness dis- 
coverable in Hinduism, Buddhism, and Islam. 
The sympathetic method of approach is Pauline, 
— wise, necessary, and fruitful of best results. 

The Parliament of Religions should be looked 
at with no narrow or one-sided vision. It should 
not be judged solely from what we deem the 
accuracy or inaccuracy, the worthiness or the 



296 CHRISTIANITY, THE WORLD-RELIGION. 

unworthiness, of the representation made in Chi- 
cago by the advocate of that particular non- 
Christian faith in which we are most interested. 
It should be considered in a large way, with a 
full knowledge of its generous and lofty pur- 
poses, its noble constituency made up of men 
and women of many nations, the full reports of 
its public proceedings, and a wide acquaintance 
with its chief results. 

The Parliament of Religions was not like the 
Emperor Asoka's conference, a meeting of In- 
dian Buddhists only; it was not like the Emperor 
Akbar's little debating society, where rival 
priests of several faiths contended before him, 
like mediaeval knights, in no spirit of fellowship 
and fraternity, each anxious for an imperial ver- 
dict in his favor. 1 The Parliament was the first 
meeting in history where the representatives of 
the world's chief religions, coming from many 
lands, conferred together in a great public assem- 
bly, with full liberty to utter their deepest 
thoughts and convictions with the assurance of a 
calm and sympathetic hearing. The objects pro- 
posed for this meeting by those who conducted 
it, were so large and generous as to win the 
favor of thousands of the leading minds among 
many nations and many faiths. Chief Rabbi 
Adler, of Great Britain, suggested the words of 
the prophet Micah, as the motto for the meet- 
ing, "Havewe not all one Father? Hath not 

1 Appendix, Lecture VII, Note 1. 



WORLD'S PARLIAMENT OF RELIGIONS. 297 

one God created us?" The Christian scholars 
who co-operated with the Parliament, often 
quoted the words of the Apostle Peter: "I per- 
ceive that God is no respecter of persons, but in 
every nation he that feareth God and worketh 
righteousness is acceptable to Him." Christian 
theologians of wide knowledge, beholding the 
elements of good in all religions, remembered 
the declaration made in the Fourth Gospel, that 
Christ is the original light, enlightening every 
man that cometh into the world. We believe 
that God is the God, not only of one people, 
but of all peoples; that He is the loving Father 
of all mankind; and that His children, more or 
less enlightened, should live together, and there- 
fore have the privilege of meeting together as 
brethren. Those of us who devoutly hold to 
the supremacy and sufficiency of Christianity, 
the Christianity of Christ, took for our guide the 
courteous and sympathetic spirit of the Apostle 
Paul when he addressed the non-Christian think- 
ers of Athens. 

Among the objects proposed for the Parlia- 
ment were these : To deepen the spirit of human 
brotherhood without fostering any temper of in- 
differentism ; to show men what are the com- 
mon truths of different religions; to set forth 
the distinctive truths of each; to inquire what 
light one religion may throw upon another; to 
indicate the foundations of theism and the rea- 
sons for faith in immortality; and to strengthen 



298 CHRISTIANITY, THE WORLD-RELIGION. 

the forces adverse to materialism. Here was 
surely a large field into which Christianity might 
enter with joyful and exultant confidence. It 
is no wonder that with such ideas and purposes 
the organizers of the Congress secured the ad- 
hesion of many of the foremost men of Christen- 
dom, including Christian statesmen, like Mr. 
Gladstone, leading divines of all Christian na- 
tions, missionaries and missionary secretaries of 
high repute, Christian poets like Tennyson and 
Whittier, and many eminent ecclesiastics, in- 
cluding the Roman Catholic hierarchy of Amer- 
ica, and twenty-three Bishops of the Anglican 
Communion. 2 With these ideas and feelings the 
promoters of this great religious council toiled on 
year after year, finding helpers in nearly all 
lands, and nowhere more earnest and generous- 
hearted friends than in India, among men be- 
longing to different Confessions. On the eleventh 
of September, 1893, our labors and hopes reached 
their fulfillment. With representatives of ten 
religions gathered beneath one roof, and with a 
Catholic Cardinal repeating the universal prayer 
of the world's Saviour, the Parliament opened. 
It was indeed a meeting of brotherhood, where 
"the Brahman forgot his caste, and the Catholic 
was chiefly conscious of his catholicity;" and 
where in the audience "the variety of interests, 
faiths, ranks, and races was as great as that found 
on the platform." As the representatives of 

2 Appendix, Lecture VII, Note 2. 



WORLD'S PARLIAMENT OF RELIGIONS. 299 

China, Japan, Russia, Germany, Hindustan, 
Sweden, and Norway, Greece, France, Africa, the 
United States, and the all-clasping Empire of 
Great Britain, from England to India and New 
Zealand, uttered their thoughts and feelings, 
multitudes entered anew into the spirit of the 
Nazarene Prophet, who seemed always to include 
the whole world in His purpose and affection. 
Nearly all great events to-day are the result of 
the ages which have preceded, but the special 
preparations for this meeting were the almost uni- 
versal prevalence of Christian missions, the rise 
and study of comparative religion, the wide use 
of the English language making such a confer- 
ence possible, international facilities for travel, 
the attractive opportunity afforded by a World's 
Exposition, much hard work, extending over 
more than three years, and ample religious free- 
dom in America. So-called liberal Christians 
naturally looked upon it as one of their triumphs, 
but they alone could not have gained the co-op- 
eration of historic Christendom. Liberal-minded 
Jews saw in it the fulfilment of the prophecy 
that the knowledge of Jehovah should cover the 
earth, but Judaism alone could not have achieved 
a convention of Christians. The Brahmo-Somaj 
of India regarded the Parliament as fulfilling the 
ideas of the New Dispensation, 3 but the Brahmo- 
Somaj would have been unable to draw together 
the representatives of the great faiths. No 
3 Appendix, Lecture VII, Note 3. 



300 CHRISTIANITY, THE WORLD-RELIGION. 

Christian missionary society could have achieved 
the Parliament, for the fear of aggressive propa- 
gandism would have kept out the non-Christian 
world. No ecclesiastical body in Christendom, 
whether Catholic, Greek, Anglican, or Lutheran, 
could have assembled the Parliament. No 
kingly and imperial government in which the 
church and state are united could have gathered 
it, and no republican government, where church 
and state are separated, would have deemed it a 
part of its office to summon it. But, as one 
element of an international exposition, and con- 
trolled by a generous-minded and representative 
committee under no ecclesiastical dictation, 
appealing in the spirit of fraternity to high- 
minded individuals, the Parliament was possible, 
and was actualized. 

I believe that the forces which, working 
through ages, culminated in this conference of 
the world's faiths are the intellectual and spir- 
itual movements which make the Gulf Stream of 
history. These forces come, as I believe, from 
the Bible, which is the text-book of a universal 
religion; they come from the Christ, the Unifier 
of Humanity, who offered Himself for the life of 
the whole world ; these forces are linked with 
that growing spirit of brotherhood which is 
breaking down the walls of caste and of national 
antipathy. And when on that September morn- 
ing the hopes and toils of years were realized, 
and the President of the World's Congress 



WORLD'S PARLIAMENT OF RELIGIONS. 301 

Auxiliary and the President of the Columbian 
Exposition, accompanied by a Catholic Car- 
dinal of America, and a Catholic Archbishop 
from New Zealand, and a Greek Archbishop 
from Zante, by representatives of the imperial 
government of China, by Buddhist priests and 
scholars from Ceylon and Japan, by representa- 
tives of the Brahmo-Somaj of India, by mis- 
sionaries of the Orient, by Mohammedans, Hin- 
dus, and Jains, by a Russian and an African 
prince, by a high priest of Shintoism, and by a 
score of the representative men and women of 
America, entered the hall of Columbus and 
joined in an act of common worship to Almighty 
God ; when the immense assembly sang 

Before Jehovah's awful throne, 
Ye nations bow with sacred joy; 

Know that the Lord is God alone; 
He can create, and He destroy 

thousands realized that they were present at a 
never-to-be-forgotten event in human history. 
A Christian divine and philosopher has written: 
"It was the greatest experience of my life. I 
never expect a repetition of the sight and the 
thrill of that opening morning hour until I stand 
before the throne above." 4 For seventeen days 
the Parliament continued. One hundred and 
fifty thousand people attended its sessions. It 
was full of the highest religious enthusiasm from 
first to last. At times the scenes were Pente- 

4 Appendix, Lecture VII, Note 4. 



302 CHRISTIANITY, THE WORLD-RELIGION. 

costal. Principal Grant, of Queen's University, 
Kingston, Canada, writes: "The spirit of the 
Parliament of Religions was the spirit of Jesus 
Christ. As 'the spectator of all time and of all 
existence,' He alone perfectly realized Plato's 
ideal of a philosopher. He saw in vision all 
nations gathered before His tribunal. Looking 
back on all the prophets, He says, 'They wrote of 
me.' Looking forward, He says, 'I am with you 
to the end of the world.' He always occupied 
that high point of view, the best of us only for 
a moment. But on the morning the Parlia- 
ment opened and the representatives of human- 
ity met together to tell one another what God 
had done for their souls, or how they had been 
groping for Him, with the sole object that all 
should share as brothers in the rich inheritance 
of His grace, we stood for some hours on the 
Mount of Vision. What an object-lesson to the 
world that the spiritual is the highest, or rather 
the only possible, interpretation of the universe." 
The Parliament, through its literature, has 
done something to widen the world's interest in 
universal religion. What study should broaden 
the bounds of intellectual and moral sympathy 
like this? Should it not give to the heart an 
expansion like that which astronomy has given 
to the brain? We, ourselves, are heirs of all 
that has been ; we feel the touch of hands which 
became dust when Nineveh was destroyed, and 
hear the sound of pathetic voices that were 



WORLD'S PARLIAMENT OF RELIGIONS. 303 

stilled before the Argive keels grated on the 
shores of Ilium or the Aryan races made their 
way to the plains of India. The sceptered spirits 
of the Past rule us from urns older than the 
Druidic circles of Stonehenge, or the rock-hewn 
temples of Elephanta, from urns as ancient as 
the burial-places of the Egyptian dead. 

And the study of religion in its entirety should 
be a mighty re-enforcement to faith. The 
spiritual facts and problems, in their majesty and 
universality, must awe the careless mind into 
reverence and rebuke the shallow skepticism, 
which dismisses the greatest fact of man's de- 
velopment as a baseless superstition. History 
itself is an unsolved problem without God, who 
is the interpreter as well as the director of human 
progress. If we leave out the Divine Provi- 
dence, what can it be but an evolution with no 
eternal intelligence, no infinite energy, no all- 
wise and fore-seeing purpose back of it? And 
surely history reaches not its highest worth until 
it rises to God. Some of its chief records must 
be erased if we omit the names of Abraham and 
Moses, of David, Isaiah, and Socrates, of Paul 
and John, of Confucius and Buddha and Mo- 
hammed, of Constantine and Athanasius, of 
Charlemagne and Bernard, of Luther and Crom- 
well, and the mighty muster-roll of the sages, 
prophets and heroes of faith. If religion is sim- 
ply a fading superstition, how does it happen 
that it maintains its hold and makes its swiftest 



304 CHRISTIANITT, THE WORLD-RELIGION. 

progress in an age of scientific knowledge, like 
our own? Mr. Kidd informs us that there is no 
tendency whatever to eliminate the super-rational 
element from religions. One who was acquainted 
with the British Association for the Advance- 
ment of Science under forty-one different presi- 
dents, said of them, after examining their re- 
ligious positions, that "The figures indicate that 
religious faith, rather than unbelief, has character- 
ized the leading men of the Association." And 
a well-known expounder of evolution has written 
that science, "instead of robbing the world of 
God has done more than all the philosophies and 
natural theologies of the past to sustain and 
enrich the theistic conception." 

The Parliament gave mankind the first oppor- 
tunity of studying religion, not in its fragments, 
but in its entirety, as represented in one historic 
assemblage. The impression which it made and 
is making on the unbelieving and secular world 
is salutary. The Columbian Exposition, which 
accentuated the material glories of modern civili- 
zation, needed the Parliament of Religions to 
bring the human mind back to the great world 
of the Spirit. Many regretfully remember that 
the architectural splendors of the Columbian 
Fair have nearly all vanished. But the Parlia- 
ment of Religions has just begun to live. As 
one has said: "It fitted into the growing con- 
sciousness of Christianity and the race. It has 
become one of the milestones in humanity's 



WORLD'S PARLIAMENT OF RELIGIONS. 305 

progress." "In a quite unexampled way," 
writes President Warren, of the Boston Uni- 
versity, "it helped, if it did not force every body 
of religionists in the world to come to a sharper 
consciousness of the defects and weaknesses of 
its own system, so far as it is at present actual- 
ized. This was a gain to all, and especially a 
gain to the cause of spiritual ideals the world 
over." One of the acutest philosophical think- 
ers of America, Professor John Bascom, has 
written: "No religious faith can be perfectly 
understood by its several items of belief alone. 
We must understand the hold which a belief has 
on the minds of those who have thoroughly ab- 
sorbed it. It is from this point of view that a 
Parliament of Religions becomes so instructive. 
It brings together those who can offer in their 
most vital forms the faiths of the world, and so 
enables us to measure the spiritual forces opera- 
tive among men." "The Parliament," writes 
Professor Bruce, of Glasgow, "may help to dis- 
pel pessimistic ideas of ethnic religions, and 
suggest the desirableness of conducting mission 
work in the sympathetic spirit of the Pauline 
thought, 'God not far from every one of us'." 

An American missionary in Constantinople 
has truly described the idea which pervaded the 
Congress as this: "That every form and develop- 
ment of religious faith and cultus should have 
a candid hearing, be understood, and its adher- 
ents treated with respect, courtesy, and affection; 



306 CHRISTIANITY, THE WORLD-RELIGION. 

also that Christianity should be choked down no 
man's throat, but that all men should be invited 
to receive it for their good, intelligently invited 
to an intelligent reception." 

Professor Thayer, of Harvard University, 
writes: ''The very conception of such a gather- 
ing as the Parliament is a product of the Christian 
Religion. It could hardly have originated under 
any other faith. So far from involving peril to 
a genuine and intelligent believer in Christianity, 
it affords him the readiest help in appreciating 
the greatness of his Christian inheritance. Only 
by a comparison can superiority be discovered. 
Only by comparison can the latent resources of 
truth, fellowship, of service, resident in the Gos- 
pel, come to recognition. Only by learning the 
best about the ethnic faiths, can the Christian 
missionary show how much that is better than 
their best he has to offer. The headshakings of 
over-timid believers make one long for a repe- 
tition of Peter's vision and Paul's sermon; that 
the Church may be taught once more that there 
is something commendable even in heathen re- 
ligiosity. Such lessons will no more chill mis- 
sionary zeal in the nineteenth century than they 
did in the first." 

We are conscious that vast progress in the 
education of humanity has glorified the last hun- 
dred years. Men have come to a broader con- 
ception of human rights and duties. The indi- 
vidual is more highly regarded, and, at the same 



WORLD'S PARLIAMENT OF RELIGIONS. 307 

time, a false and selfish individualism is rejected. 
Divided and scattered peoples of one race have 
been brought into national unity, and the nations 
which make up Western Christendom have com- 
bined for the suppression of great evils like the 
slave-trade. Men are taking the whole globe 
into their minds and studies and plans. The 
age of isolation is passing away. International 
expositions have helped to break down the bar- 
riers of ignorance, antipathy, and prejudice. 
How the bounds of fraternity have been en- 
larged! Humanity, though sundered by oceans 
and languages, and widely differing forms of 
religion, is, after all, a unit. The literatures of 
the great historic faiths are more and more 
studied in the spirit which would employ only 
the agencies of light and love. Those of us who 
believe that we cherish a faith which has just 
claims to universalism, which gathers into itself 
all the elements of truth and power which lie 
scattered and largely ineffective in other re- 
ligions, are learning that the best propagandism 
is that which has love, tolerance, and sympathy 
at the heart of it. 

Professor James Orr, of Edinburgh, has writ- 
ten: "I cannot imagine that anything but good 
can come from the appearance of the repre- 
sentatives of the great religions of the world on 
a free platform, with full liberty to each to state 
its views and claims on the homage of mankind, 
provided it be understood that there is no neces- 



308 CHRISTIANITY, THE WORLD-RELIGION. 

sary abating on the part of any, of what may be 
held to be its exclusive title to acceptance. 
Christianity should, least of all, shrink from such 
an ordeal and should welcome the opportunity 
of a world-wide audience." It was the spirit of 
fraternity which succeeded in bringing together, 
in 1893, such widely separated exponents of 
religion. "Enemies simply met and discovered 
that they were brothers who had one Father in 
heaven." To dwell on the deep, tender feelings 
awakened by the presence at the Parliament of 
the truth-seekers of the Orient, earnest, heart- 
hungry, believing that they had much to teach 
as well as something to learn, their "faces set 
toward God, and with some message from God;" 
to recall the emotions awakened during the great 
opening and closing hours of the Parliament, 
would be to indulge in what many would deem 
a sentimental rhapsody ; but it is not rhapsody 
to say that "the age of isolation and hatred has 
passed, and the age of toleration and scientific 
comparison has come." Kindlier feelings were 
certainly engendered at the Parliament, and 
many who looked upon this meeting as a noble 
humanitarian measure believe, that by it preju- 
dices were removed and certain results to civili- 
zation made possible. Without concession, with- 
out any attempt to treat all religions as equally 
meritorious, without any compromise of any 
system of faith and worship, with no idea of 
finding or founding any new world-religion, with 



WORLD'S PARLIAMENT OF RELIGIONS. 309 

equal freedom gladly accorded to all races and 
both sexes — the sessions of the Parliament con- 
tinued in practically unbroken harmony. There 
was much significance to human brotherhood in 
the daily recital of the Lord's Prayer, though 
the unity of the Parliament was that of spirit 
rather than creed. 5 If this meeting simply 
effected a wider diffusion of brotherliness, it de- 
serves, as the London Daily Telegraph has said, 
"a place among the notable events of our age." 
It was certainly a protest against the exclusive- 
ness of feeling, the ignorant pride, the ecclesi- 
astical aloofness, and the dogmatic haughtiness 
which often prevail. 

The world will not soon forget how the vene- 
rated Dr. Schaff declared his resolution to speak 
at the Parliament a last word in favor of Chris- 
tian unity. "He was a prophet, " writes Pro- 
fessor Comba, from Rome, "for this word of his 
was his swan song." One of the chief ideas 
which the Parliament made luminous was a re- 
united Christendom, the preparation for a Chris- 
tianized world. Since all the religions found, as 
Castelar has said, "a common ground in Chris- 
tianity," and since inevitably the best religion 
must come to the foreground, may we not look 
to see the lines of human progress centering 
more and more in Christ? 

It has often been remarked that little sectarian- 
ism was preached at the Parliament. There 

5 Appendix, Lecture VII, Note 5. 



3IO CHRISTIANITY, THE WORLD-RELIGION. 

Christendom proclaimed its Master. Inevitably 
this meeting, which furnished the prophecy of a 
reunited church, has had large effect on many 
minds. Discussions of reunion have been increas- 
ingly rife. Archbishop Keane says that Ameri- 
cans are over-eager for speedy results, and he is 
almost content with saying that "the Parliament 
accomplished itself." But facts lead to results 
in the world of the spirit. Feelings are changed, 
and then convictions. "The solemn charge 
which the Parliament preaches to all true be- 
lievers is a return to the primitive unity of Chris- 
tians as a condition precedent to the conversion 
of the world." With this faith in their hearts, 
men are active along various lines. The results 
may be far off, but they are certain. 

But to me, one of the chief results of the Par- 
liament relates to Christian missions. While 
modifying some popular views of the Oriental 
faiths, it is promoting a new and humaner inter- 
est in foreign missions by making the ethnic sys- 
tems more real and also more definite to many 
minds, by showing Christians that these faiths 
are far from dead, though they may have little 
life-giving power over their adherents ; by set- 
ting before the Christian world the magnitude of 
the task that it has undertaken; by teaching 
that it must make its swifter and wider advances 
in the future by a better understanding and a 
larger sympathy, rather than by contemptuous 
hostility and bigoted exclusiveness. No intelli- 



WORLD'S PARLIAMENT OF RELIGIONS. 311 

gent believer in Christian missions has had his 
faith shaken by the stories, some of them almost 
fairy stories, which two or three of the delegates 
to the Parliament related. No phenomenon of 
the century has, on the whole, been more re- 
markable than the Christian uprising in Europe 
and America, to give the Gospel to all lands, 
and nothing has given me more satisfaction in 
the work which I endeavored to do for the glory 
of God through this Parliament, than the warm 
approval coming from scores of leading mission- 
ary scholars. 

We welcomed the best which the non-Chris- 
tian religions could say for themselves. There 
was an able delegation of Buddhist priests, 
there were eloquent representatives of the Brah- 
mo-Samaj, there were scores of able expounders of 
Judaism, there were excellent papers read in praise 
of Parsiism and Tauism, there were speeches in 
eulogy of Islam, there was an extremely elabo- 
rate and learned exposition of Confucianism, 
there were papers on Hinduism by orthodox 
Hindus who could not be present, and there was 
a very interesting and eloquent oration on Hin- 
duism by one who was able to address the Par- 
liament in person — an oration which has had 
many echoes and many criticisms. But whoever 
takes pains to read the proceedings of the Parlia- 
ment will discover that the meeting "was a great 
Christian demonstration with a non-Christian 
section which added color and picturesque effect. 



312 CHRISTIANITY, THE WORLD-RELIGION. 

The Parliament was distinctively Christian in its 
spirit, conceptions, prayers, doxologies, benedic- 
tions, and in its prevailing language, arguments, 
and faith. Only Christianity proclaimed itself 
the missionary and absolute religion with the 
world for its field. No Christian struck his 
colors nor allowed himself to be compromised by 
the presence of men of other faiths." 

I have the widest possible acquaintance with 
the effects of that meeting on American Chris- 
tianity; and I know that it was very generally 
felt and said by Christian ministers, journalists, 
and teachers, that the Christianity of Christ dis- 
played its glorious supremacy, its peerless char- 
acter from first to last, and some went so far as 
to affirm that the non-Christian religions would 
never be willing to appear again in a great world- 
congress, and show their little tapers by the side 
of Christianity's solar orb. My own conviction 
was strong from the beginning, and grew stronger 
with the progress of the Parliament, that the 
best which the non-Christian faiths could say for 
themselves would only make more conspicuous 
the supereminence of Christ. Such I believe, 
was the conviction of every Christian missionary 
who took part in the Parliament. The published 
proceedings of the meeting were described to me 
by a leading student of Comparative Theology 
as one of the best books in recent years on the 
evidences of Christianity. It is commended to 



WORLD'S PARLIAMENT OF RELIGIONS. 313 

Christian theological students as such. The 
spirit, the prayers, hymns, and main arguments 
of this Congress were Christian. When, at the 
closing meeting, one speaker ventured to sug- 
gest that no religion should henceforth seek to 
make converts of the others, the strange remark 
received applause from only one person. That 
great audience, at the closing session, was thrilled 
by the Hallelujah Chorus and the prophecy 
which was sung, "The kingdoms of this world 
shall become the kingdom of our Lord and of 
His Christ," seemed to them more certain than 
ever to be realized. After the final meeting, the 
vice-president of a leading foreign missionary 
society sent to me his thanks for the services 
which I had rendered to Christianity, as he be- 
lieved, by the Parliament of Religions. I have 
never heard of a single Christian minister who 
was disturbed in his faith or who gave up his 
work on account of the Parliament. But I do 
know that Christianity in America has made 
steady and strong and rapid advances in the 
last three years, that willingness to give to for- 
eign missions has been as great as ever, and I do 
know that the forms of Oriental speculation have 
scarcely made a ripple on the deep surface of our 
Western life. When the Parliament closed, I, 
with others, affirmed that it would give a new 
impetus to Christian missions. Mr. Mozoomdar 
said: "I regard Christ as an essential factor in 
the future of India;" and we who have been 



3H CHRISTIAN/TV, THE WORLD-RELIGION. 

trained in Christian lands agree with Christians 
here that Christ is the essential factor in India's 
coming regeneration. The Parliament's logical 
outcome, as Dr. Joseph Cook has written, will 
be the " exaltation of Christianity as the Sun, 
compared with which all alien faiths are only 
candles." 

"The Parliament," says Mr. Slater, of Banga- 
lore, "cannot fail to broaden the thoughts of all 
reflecting Christians and influence for good the 
spirit of foreign missions. It must tell, and has 
already told, in the direction of greater courtesy 
and wider toleration and fraternity." He also 
says that the Parliament shows conclusively that 
Christianity holds the future in its hand. The 
venerated Dr. Cyrus Hamlin has pronounced 
this effort to bring together all the religions of 
the world on the common plane of the brother- 
hood of man a "noble humanitarian measure." 
"Much good has already resulted," says Dr. 
Wherry, for twenty years a Presbyterian mission- 
ary in India, "and more good will result in the 
future." "The Parliament," says that St. Paul 
among Syrian missionaries, Dr. Henry H. Jes- 
sup, "has awakened thought, stimulated investi- 
gation, stirred up criticism, given light where 
light was needed, shown the weakness and im- 
potence of the non-Christian systems, given 
Christianity an opportunity to show its supreme 
excellence, and brought the Church of Christ 
face to face with those who were afar off and 



WORLD'S PARLIAMENT OF RELIGIONS. Z l S 

almost unknown. Christian missions have found 
new justification and a new quickening." "I 
believe," says Dr. Dennis, of Syria, "that the 
Parliament will be for the establishment of Chris- 
tianity." And that noble missionary scholar, 
Dr. Post, writes his conviction that "the out- 
come of our Parliament will be for the further- 
ance of the Gospel." "The Church of Christ," 
says Dr. De Forest, of Japan, "is now on a bet- 
ter basis for the intelligent prosecution of mis- 
sion work." "So far from abnegating the 
supremacy of Christianity," says Dr. Martin, of 
the Imperial University of Peking, "the Parlia- 
ment exemplifies the attitude Christianity must 
assume to win recognition." And the Rev. 
Gilbert Reid says: "While a few from non- 
Christian lands may misinterpret the Parliament, 
the majority will be drawn by the broad, sympa- 
thetic attitude of Christians, and will continue to 
be influenced by the same spirit. ' ' I have received 
one testimonial to the Parliament which I deem 
of greater weight than all the adverse criticisms 
which it has been my fortune to read. 6 The 
Rev. Daniel McGilvary, the able and veteran 
missionary among the Laos, writes: "The Parlia- 
ment of Religions, from its inception, com- 
mended itself to my judgment. Besides attend- 
ing all its sessions, I have read all that I have 
seen written for and against it, and that judg- 
ment remains unchanged. Its records will ever 
6 Appendix, Lecture VII, note 6. 



316 CHRISTIANITT, THE WORLD-RELIGION. 

remain a thesaurus from which missionaries and 
students will draw on all the subjects embraced 
in its broad range." When we consider the 
high character, conservative wisdom, and broad 
experience of this missionary, his knowledge of 
the Buddhist world in which he lives, and his 
accurate and perfect understanding of the spirit 
which pervaded the Congress, these words are 
entitled to the weight and rank which I have 
given them. 

The Parliament speaks to Christians with a 
brave and cheerful voice, bidding us to be full of 
hope and love and brotherhood, bidding us to 
emphasize those essentials of truth by which the 
world is to be saved, rather than those non- 
essentials by which it is liable to be lost. The 
Parliament was not founded on the false theory 
that all religions are equally good. It was 
founded on the spirit of Christian courtesy, and 
also on the rock of absolute sincerity in the 
maintenance of individual convictions. Nothing 
could be further from the facts than the conten- 
tion that all the representatives of religion were 
welcomed "as equally inspired and equally 
sufficient prophets and teachers in things sacred 
and divine." "Superficial people," writes Pro- 
fessor Bruce, of Scotland, "might carry away 
the impression that it put all religions on a level. 
The truth, however, is that it simply gave the 
religions of the world an opportunity of being 
compared, one with another, on their merits." 



WORLD'S PARLIAMENT OF RELIGIONS. 317 

''That Christianity," says Dr. Dennis, formerly 
a secretary of the American Presbyterian Board 
of Foreign Missions, "has a right to command, 
is true ; but has it not the right also to dis- 
cuss, compare, and persuade? God says, even to 
offending sinners, 'Come, let us reason to- 
gether.' "I do not understand," he adds, 
"that Christianity ever resigned the purpose and 
hope of both influencing and convincing men 
through the Parliament of Religions." 

Much might be rightly said of the high char- 
acter and ability of many of those who composed 
this assembly. If I were asked to-day to name 
a score and more of those who seem to me 
now to have been the chief and most powerful 
personalities in that Congress, the list would 
include, besides several professors from the Uni- 
versity of Chicago and a strong delegation from 
Japan, the Catholic Archbishop Keane, who 
organized the Catholic forces most ably, and 
proved himself catholic-hearted on every day of 
the Parliament and in every relation with men 
who differed from him ; the Archbishop of Zante, 
an impressive orator and great-hearted speaker, 
whose sudden death, shortly after his return, 
has sorrowed many hearts ; Dr. George Dana 
Boardman, of Philadelphia, almost always pres- 
ent at the meetings, and a gracious influence 
everywhere ; the late Dr. Philip SchafT, the 
eminent historian, whose address on the "Re- 
union of Christendom" has been called apos- 



318 CHRISTIANITT, THE WORLD-RELIGION. 

tolic; Mr. Mozoomdar, the leader of the Brah- 
mo-Somaj, a man of great eloquence and spiritual 
power; Dr. Joseph Cook, a critic of the Parlia- 
ment during many of its days, and its powerful 
champion since; Rev. George T. Candlin, the 
English missionary from China, who spoke so 
persuasively for. Christian unity in missionary 
fields, and who found the Parliament had be- 
come an epoch in his intellectual life; the Hon- 
orable Pung Quang Yu, the learned representa- 
tive of Confucianism, Mr. Dharmapala, the 
gentle Buddhist of Ceylon, whose heart still 
lingers in America, to which he has returned, 
and who writes most discouragingly of the 
lethargic spirit of the Buddhist priests, and who 
says that "if Christians would include kindness 
to animals in their programme, he would be glad 
to close his life as a preacher of Jesus;" Prince 
Wolkonsky of Russia, whose voice was heard on 
three occasions, always with acceptance; Mr. 
Hirai, the Japanese orator, whose stern denun- 
ciation of the sins of Christian people, evoked 
the applause of Christian auditors; the orator 
of philosophic Hinduism now welcomed back to 
India; Washington Gladden, who spoke on the 
social problem with a divine fire which ought to 
burn down the barriers of un-Christian separa- 
tions and inspire the disciples of Jesus to co- 
operative labors for the common good ; Dr. Wash- 
burn, of Constantinople, who expounded the 
Mohammedan question with rare wisdom, and 



WORLD'S PARLIAMENT OF RELIGIONS. 319 

whose writings in behalf of the Parliament have 
had a wide influence; Cardinal Gibbons, who 
won may hearts when he thanked God that there 
is one platform on which we all stand united — 
the platform of charity, of humanity, of benevo- 
lence; Rabbi Gottheil, of New York, who gave 
such an eloquent eulogy of Moses, and who con- 
sidered it the glory and reward of his life to be 
able to speak in such an assembly of the man 
who had been light, strength, and inspiration 
to him from childhood ; Colonel Thomas W. 
Higginson, who so skillfully turned the minds of 
his hearers from theological to less speculative 
and more practical questions; Professor Pea- 
body, of Harvard, who spoke of Christ as the 
greatest Individualist and the greatest Socialist 
of history; Lyman Abbott, of New York, who 
eulogized religion as the essential foundation of 
all religions; Dr. Alger, of Boston, who pointed 
out with wonderful philosophic insight the 
necessary steps toward the spiritual reunion of 
mankind; Dr. Pentecost, of London, who 
preached the Gospel at a Parliament of Religions 
with the same aggressive fearlessness that he em- 
ployed in addressing the college students of Cal- 
cutta; Dr. Momerie, the able and brilliant ex- 
pounder of Christian Theism; Mrs. Julia Ward 
Howe, whose words seemed a benediction; 
Robert A. Hume, one of the broadest-minded 
and most earnest of our Indian missionaries; 
Rev. B. Fay Mills, the evangelist, who, after 



320 CHRISTIANITY, THE WORLD-RELIGION. 

speaking of Christ as the world's Saviour, 
wrought his great audience into a fervor of 
Christian feeling which brought many of them 
to their feet ; and Bishop Dudley, of Kentucky, 
who preached the historic Christ with such ma- 
jestic faith and personal enthusiasm of devout 
feeling that he strengthened the confidence of 
multitudes that Christ alone is equal to the task 
of redeeming humanity. 

No meeting like that which I am describing, 
however carefully planned, will be devoid of 
mistake. The Parliament of 1893 was con- 
ducted by men who did the best that could be 
done under very difficult circumstances. They 
believed that, though some unfortunate miscon- 
ceptions would inevitably result, the undertak- 
ing was well worth the risk; and their expecta- 
tions have been more than fulfilled. Thinking 
of the welcome that the Parliament of Religions 
has opened to me in India — to me with a dis- 
tinctively Christian message — I am reminded of 
what the Catholic Professor of Comparative Re- 
ligion at Louvain, Belgium, Mgr. D'Harlez, has 
recently said of the Parliament, that it was" a 
good way to promote the knowledge of truth, to 
assemble men of all creeds under the sky in a 
princely assemblage, so as to conciliate the minds 
of men who are hostile to each other because of 
a thousand misconceptions and prejudices or 
hereditary, secular conflicts, and to make them 
acknowledge that they are all the children of 



WORLD'S PARLIAMENT OF RELIGIONS. 321 

one Celestial Father and Creator. This is the 
best means for the propagation of the true re- 
ligion ; this is a canal digged for the flowing of 
water from the purest sources. And now the 
missionary who enters into a heathen country is 
no more an enemy, not even a stranger, but a 
brother who comes to bring light into the land 
and preach the common Father of mankind." 
"If, " he says, "subsequent sessions of the Par- 
liament are to be fruitful, it must be under the 
condition that they deviate not from the original 
aim and do not serve the purpose of religious 
indifference." 

Bishop Vincent wrote me not long ago of his 
sympathy with the Parliament, and said: "I hope 
that similar gatherings may take place in con- 
nection with the French Exposition of 1900. 
Only the systems which are conscious of weak- 
ness can be afraid of an open statement concern- 
ing their own views and concerning the views of 
those schools which they regard as rival or an- 
tagonistic. There may be temporary embarrass- 
ment occasioned by the full publication of such 
varied views, but thereby investigation and care- 
ful comparison must be promoted. All honest 
and inquiring souls will see a large measure of 
truth as the result of such investigation." I 
have strong hope that a second Parliament will 
take place in Paris. The Catholic hierarchy of 
America favors the second, as it did the first. 
The Catholic leaders of Europe are generally 



32 2 CHRISTIANITY, THE WORLD-RELIGION. 

hostile to the second as they were to the first ; 
but there are Catholic laymen of great influence 
in France, who may achieve another congress of 
the creeds. 

The first Parliament has given an impetus to 
the study of comparative theology, which is in 
truth "the demonstration of Christianity." It 
has led to the founding of two international 
Lectureships, one in America and one in India. 
It has widened the bounds of human fraternity; 
it is fortifying timid souls in regard to the right 
and wisdom of liberty in thought and expres- 
sion ; it is clarifying many minds in regard to 
the nature of the non-Christian faiths; it is 
deepening, in Western lands, the general Chris- 
tian interest in non-Christian nations; and it will 
bring before millions in the Orient the more 
truthful and beautiful aspects of Christianity. 

I think that nearly all will agree with me in 
thinking the Congress was a notable event for 
the African, whose manhood was fully recog- 
nized ; for the Jew, who has suffered various 
forms of persecution; for the Liberal, who saw 
the truths for which he had specially contended 
grandly recognized; for the Roman Catholic, 
who came out into a new atmosphere and gained 
from theological opponents new admiration and 
respect ; for woman, for there she secured the 
largest recognition of her intellectual rights ever 
granted. It was a great event for the social 
reformer and the advocate of international justice ; 



WORLD'S PARLIAMENT OF RELIGIONS. 323 

for the Parliament was unanimous in denouncing 
the selfishness of modern society, and the in- 
iquity of the opium trade and the rum traffic; 
for the Buddhist, the Hindu, and the Confucian, 
who were permitted to interpret their own faiths 
in the Parliament of Man; for the orthodox 
Protestant, whose heart and intellect were ex- 
panded, and whose faith in the Gospel of God's 
grace was strengthened by the words and scenes 
of that assembly; and it was especially a great 
event for the earnest and broad-minded Christian 
missionary, who rejoiced that all Christendom 
was at last forced to confront the problem of 
bringing Christ, the Universal Saviour, to all 
mankind. 

It is already evident, as Dr. Ellinwood, the 
President of the American Society of Compara- 
tive Religion, has said, "that the Parliament has 
come to stay." These world-wide comparisons 
must continue. Enlightened men will have the 
best and truest, and the best religion must come 
to the front. As a Christian believer, I wel- 
come truth from every source. I rejoice that 
our recent studies have added much to the spir- 
itual panorama of human history. The mild and 
tolerant Buddhist Emperor, Asoka, the Hindu 
Constantine, takes his place by the savage and 
shrewd warrior who saw the Cross in the sky. 
Akbar, the Moslem, appears unabashed in com- 
pany with Charlemagne the Christian. St. 
Paul's looms before us on the same horizon 



324 CHRISTIANITY, THE WORLD-RELIGION. 

with the Temple of Heaven at Peking, and the 
Milan Cathedral stands by the Mosque of Omar. 
The waters from the Well of Zemzem together 
with those from Bethesda are brought to our 
lips. The strange pictures of the Orient startle 
the eyes which have seen the canvases of Fra 
Angelico and Titian. Moses and Mohammed 
walk before our vision ; saints throng round us, 
besides those in the Acta Sanctorum of Catholic 
Europe; the monks of the Nile and the monks 
of Thibet look out upon us, while the sacred 
books of the Orient, an imposing library in them- 
selves, dwarf the modest volumes of the Old and 
New Testaments. But we who have accepted 
the Christian Gospel as the world's hope and 
salvation need not be disturbed nor distracted ; 

For over all the creeds the face of Christ 
Glows with white glory on the face of Man. 

We have seen Him, who, in various measure, 
has enlightened all. He is the key to history 
and to religion, because He is the Reconciler as 
well as the Redeemer, and only His Spirit, pene- 
trating into all the earth, could have called forth 
such expressions of fraternity among men of 
wide-sundered faiths, as rejoiced our hearts in 
the World's First Parliament of Religions. 

It has been wisely said that "the graves of the 
dead religions declare that not selection, but in- 
corporation, makes a religion strong; not incor- 
poration, but reconciliation ; not reconciliation 
but the fulfillment of all these aspirations, these 



WORLD'S PARLIAMENT OF RELIGIONS. 325 

partial truths in a higher thought, in a transcend- 
ent life." The ethnic faiths are not mere curi- 
osities or moral monstrosities on the one hand, 
and still less, on the other, are they the final 
faiths of the nations adopting them — Chris- 
tianity, tolerant, because cherishing an invincible 
faith in her spiritual victory, not ''divorced from 
the moral order of history," but penetrating, 
explaining, and crowning that order, Chris- 
tianity, all luminous with Christ, is the religion 
of the coming man ; for Christ is the eternal Son 
of God, in whom Reason and Faith, the Indi- 
vidual and Society, Man and Woman, Morality 
and Religion, Heaven and Earth, are perfectly 
conjoined and reconciled. He is, and may be 
shown to be, the New Dispensation, which the 
saintly Chunder Sen of India believed had dawned 
in his own heart ; He is the harmony of all 
Scriptures, Saints, and Sects, of Inspiration and 
of Science, of Asiatic thought and of Western 
activity, the reconciliation of apparent contra- 
dictions, "the invisible Westminster Abbey" 
where the enmities of more than a hundred gen- 
erations are to lie buried and forgotten. 

He came among men, not to make them re- 
ligious, but to make them holy. The man is 
religious who offers rice to the hideous idols of 
an Asiatic temple, or beats a horrible drum to 
keep away the witches from an African village, 
but the pagan, whether living here or in Canton 
or Natal, needs a new heart. Loving sin, he 



326 CHRISTIANITY, THE WORLD-RELIGION. 

must learn to love holiness. 7 The world needs 
the Christian religion. India needs Christ. I 
speak with some confidence on this point. In 
the providence of God, I have given time, dur- 
ing the best years of my life, to the examination 
of this question, and I have had opportunities 
such as few other men ever had of seeing 
and knowing the best side of the ethnic religions. 
I count as my friends Parsees and Hindus, Bud- 
dhists and Confucianists, Shintoists, Jains, and 
Mohammedans. I know what they say about 
themselves. I have looked at their religions on 
the ideal side, as well as the practical, and I 
know this, that the very best which is in them, 
the very best which these well-meaning men 
have shown to us, is often a reflex from Chris- 
tianity, and that which they lack, and the lack is 
very serious, is what the Christian Gospel alone 
can impart ; and I know that beneath the shin- 
ing examples of the elect few in the non-Chris- 
tian world there is a vast area of idolatry, and 
pollution, and unrest, and superstition, and 
cruelty, which can never be healed by the forces 
which are found in the non-Christian systems. 
Recognizing to the full the brighter side of so- 
called heathenism, rejoicing that the light has 
been shining everywhere, and that foreshadow- 
ings of the evangelic truths are discoverable 
among the nations, I yet see that in Christ only 
is there full salvation for the individual and for 
' Appendix, Lecture VII, Note 7. 



WORLD'S PARLIAMENT OF RELIGIONS. 327 

society. Many wise and true opinions are 
doubtless held by the disciples of the ethnic 
faiths, but opinions, however true, are not 
man's crying need. Jesus Christ is not only the 
Truth, but He is also the Way and the Life. 8 
Men need to know the way which is the way of 
the Cross; they need to feel the touch of the 
life from Him who came that men might have 
life. I believe that He has been everywhere by 
His Spirit, and that all that is true, beautiful 
and good is a part of His manifested glory. But 
the work of His Church, made one in Him, is to 
reveal to mankind the Christ of the Gospels and 
the Christ of personal experience, to be wit- 
nesses of His truth and love to the uttermost 
parts of the earth. He came to earth to lift us 
to heaven. He was delivered unto death for the 
offences of men; He was raised from the grave 
for the justification of our faith in Him ; and, 
thus exalted, He has promised to draw all men 
unto Him, And we have a moral and intellec- 
tual right, with all brotherly kindness in our 
souls, to ask kings and sages, poets, and proph- 
ets, and all peoples to crown Him the Lord of 
all. In the olden days when the German em- 
peror was chosen, the three archbishops of 
Treves, Mayence, and Cologne girt him with 
the sword and crowned him with the crown of 
Charlemagne. At the banquet the Bohemian 
king was his cup-bearer; the Count Palatine 
8 Appendix, Lecture VII, Note 8. 



328 CHRISTIANITY, THE WORLD-RELIGION. 

plunged his knife into the roasted ox and waited 
on his Master; the Duke of Saxony spurred his 
horse into heaps of golden grain and bore off a 
full measure for his lord, while the Margrave of 
Brandenburg rode to a fountain and filled the im- 
perial ewer with water. Standing this day, as 
in the presence of the chief prophets and might- 
iest forces of the world, let us expect a new 
coronation of the world's living Christ, the 
rightful Emperor of mankind. Let the Churches, 
girt with his sword of spiritual power, crown Him 
with the royal diadem which is His due. Let 
princes and nobles be the servants of His Gos- 
pel ; let kings and emperors wait on Him who is 
the Ancient of Days ; let cities bring great meas- 
ures of gold to publish His word ; and let univer- 
sities, loyal to the spirit which has founded the 
chief seats of the higher Western and Eastern 
learning, forsaking every unworthy and strange 
idolatry of human leaders, fill their imperial 
chalices from the river of the Water of Life, and 
stand attendant on their Lord. 



APPENDIX. 



APPENDIX. 

DR. BARROWS IN INDIA AND JAPAN.* 

BY REV. ROBERT A. HUME, D.D. 

Every one knows that time is needed for the de- 
velopment of great things in vegetation, in animal 
life, and in architecture. But every one does not 
understand that there is similar need of time for 
the development and for an adequate appreciation 
of great things in mind and in spirit. The Parlia- 
ment of Religions, which met in Chicago in 1893, 
was a unique and great event in the world of mind 
and spirit. Therefore, according to the law of life, 
time is necessary for the development of its results 
and for men to fully appreciate it. Hence, though 
held in America, it is not yet adequately under- 
stood even there. Much less can its true signifi- 
cance be grasped in distant Asia from the reports 
of comparatively few persons. But it is the nature 
of great things that they must diffuse themselves 
and their fruits. It is an evidence that the First 
Parliament of Religions was great that it is yearly 
more and more diffusing itself. It was conceived 
and grew in connection with the greatest Inter- 
national Exposition of material things, because its 

*This narrative of Dr. Barrows's reception in the Orient, and this account of 
the circumstances under which his addresses were given, will add, doubtless, 
further interest to the Lectures themselves. — The Publishers. 

33* 



33 2 CHRISTIANITY, THE WORLD-RELIGION. 

promoters believed that a colossal exhibition of 
such things is inadequate, and in some respects 
dangerous, unless there is with it and in it an ex- 
position of the greatest spiritual things. This con- 
viction brought forth the Parliament, the first truly 
ecumenical exposition of religions. 

And, of course, if it was to be an ecumenical 
exposition of spiritual things, it could not be con- 
ducted on a less courteous or less wide basis than 
the exposition of material things. In this latter 
exposition every nation, even the weakest and 
least advanced, was invited to send specimens of 
its best products, to be selected and displayed by 
its own representatives in their own way, and to be 
placed by the side of the products of other lands, 
in the confidence that such an exposition would be 
mutually helpful. The products displayed by the 
United States, Great Britain, and Germany were 
immensely superior to the displays sent from Af- 
rica and South America. Nevertheless the mutual 
exposition was helpful to Europe and America, as 
well as to Africa and South America. 

It ought to have been in a similarly courteous 
spirit, and it was in such a spirit, that the interna- 
tional exhibition of religions was conceived and 
conducted. Its meaning was the supremacy of the 
spiritual element in man. This was noble in itself, 
and more sublime because of its connection with a 
gigantic exhibition of the material products of the 
world. Representatives of each religion presented 
their faiths in their own way. All were not fair or 
wise. But no other course would have been feas- 
ible or wise. Naturally the followers of each relig- 



APPENDIX. 333 

ion put a very high estimate on their own faith. 
But it does not seem doubtful that the one crown- 
ing impression of the Parliament was, in the su- 
premacy of spiritual things, the supremacy of 
Christ. None but Christians could or would have 
planned or executed it. 

Because it was a living spiritual power, the Par- 
liament of Religions led to subsequent important 
events. First, a Christian lady of America, Mrs. 
Caroline E. Haskell, founded a lectureship on Com- 
parative Religion in the Chicago University, for 
attendants at that institution. Then, she founded 
a lectureship on the same subject in connection 
with the same University, but the lectures to be de- 
livered in India, every other year, by some eminent 
man. Naturally Mrs. Haskell and the University 
requested the president of the Parliament, the Rev. 
John Henry Barrows, D.D., to be the first lecturer 
to India on this foundation. But he declined the 
appointment. Just before that time Mr. Gladstone 
had retired from political life, and he was then for- 
mally requested by the University to come to 
India to give the first series of lectures on the rela- 
tion of Christianity to the faiths of this land. He 
also declined, and suggested Canon Gore. That 
eminent man was unable to accept the invitation. 
The University then again most urgently requested 
Dr. Barrows to accept the appointment. He was 
the pastor of the First Presbyterian Church of Chi- 
cago, and laid the matter before the authorities of 
the church. They felt that it was undesirable to 
give him the prolonged leave of absence necessary 
for this purpose. But under all the circumstances 



334 CHRISTIANITY, THE WORLD-RELIGION. 

it seemed to him that there was a divine call to 
this service. Therefore, he resigned his important 
position in Chicago and went to Germany to secure 
the amplest preparation for the first series of lec- 
tures on this new foundation. 

Two influential communities in India looked for- 
ward with deep interest and questioning to these 
Barrows-Haskell lectures — viz., the non-Christian 
religious reformers, and the Christian missionaries. 
The former have been much influenced by the Lord 
Jesus Christ; they know that there has been some 
change among Western Christians in conceiving 
and stating the Christian faith, and they have 
thought and hoped that the Parliament of Relig- 
ions meant and would more and more show that 
none of the present religions of the world is to be- 
come the final religion, but that each, with some 
modifications, is good enough for its adherents, 
and that the final, universal religion will be some 
mixture and outcome of them all. Such persons 
anticipated, with much hope, yet with some mis- 
giving, the coming of Dr. Barrows. 

Because the entire non-Christian community in 
India had so interpreted the Parliament of Relig- 
ions, and because most missionaries in India have 
not had time to see what is to be the real outcome 
of that unique religious conference, many mission- 
aries here looked forward with misgiving lest the 
Barrows-Haskell lectures would lead Indians to 
think that leaders of the West had somewhat low- 
ered the Christian standard. But there were some 
missionaries who confidently expected a high and 
strong presentation of their faith. 



APPENDIX. 335 

The great courtesy and kindness which Dr. Bar- 
rows had shown to the Indian representatives of all 
faiths at the Chicago Conference, and his unique 
position, both as the president of that remarkable 
gathering, and now as representative of the vigor- 
ous young University of Chicago to the thinking 
men of India, made it certain that he would have a 
most cordial reception from all classes in this cour- 
teous country, whatever he might say. When he 
landed in Bombay, accompanied by Mrs. Barrows, 
on December 15, 1896, he was very heartily wel- 
comed by representatives of the Hindu, Jain, 
Parsi, Brahmo and Christian communities, partly 
through delegations and partly by letters. The 
Bombay Missionary Conference had arranged a 
large reception for him at Wilson College, where 
leaders of all communities were to meet him. But 
on account of the epidemic which is ravaging Bom- 
bay it was deemed best that he should hurry away 
from that city, and the reception was given up. 
He went first to Benares and spent five days in ob- 
servations of Hinduism in its capital, and in making 
several addresses. But his work began in Calcutta, 
the political and intellectual capital of India, where 
he stayed from December 23d to January 4th. 

A noble reception, worthy of the hospitality of 
hospitable India and most honorable to the leader 
of Hindu society in Calcutta, was given at the 
palace of Maharajah Bahadur Sir Jotindra Mohun 
Tagore, K.C. S.I., by representatives of the Hindu, 
Mohammedan, Jain, Parsi, Buddhist, Brahmo, and 
Christian communities. It was a unique and grand 
occasion, the exact parallel to which has never 



33 6 CHRISTIANITY, THE WORLD-RELIGION. 

occurred, when, in an orthodox Hindu prince's pal- 
ace, representatives of every faith met to give the 
heartiest welcome to a Christian lecturer from the 
West. At this introduction to his special mission 
to India., among other fraternal messages Dr. Bar- 
rows said, after words of welcome had been spoken 
by Rev. Dr. K. S. Macdonald: 

It is one of the chief privileges of my life to stand at last 
on the soil of India and to look with wondering eyes on 
scenes of strangeness and of splendor which have long been 
present to the eyes of the mind, to bring to the ancient 
and thoughtful Orient loving salutations from the young 
and vigorous Occident, and to speak, however imperfectly, 
some words of brotherly affection which may help to bring 
them into a closer union of spirit. ... I have come to 
India, not merely to inaugurate a Christian lectureship, 
bringing America into telegraphic spiritual communication 
with Calcutta, but also to make further studies into the life 
of this ancient and wondrous land ; I have come in order to 
realize still further the spiritual indebtedness of the world 
to Asia; to clasp hands with those of kindred purposes and 
of various creeds, who, believing in the Fatherhood of God 
and the Brotherhood of Man, realize, as Cardinal Gibbons 
said to us on the opening day of the Parliament, that we 
never perform an act so pleasing to God as when we extend 
the right hand of fellowship and of practical love to a suf- 
fering member of His earthly family. ... I desire to 
be numbered among those who are lovers of India. . . . 
Religion has achieved a great work in the past — a work 
marred, however, by serious imperfections. Its best min- 
istry lies, not in the years behind us with their alienations, 
their bitterness and cruel persecutions, but belongs rather to 
that splendid future when the worshipers of God and the 
lovers of men shall fully realize that religion in its truest 
manifestations is able to bind the world together into a cos- 
mopolitan fraternity. . . . May that spirit which the 
Christians believe is the spirit of Jesus prevail still more 
widely and pervade still more deeply. 



APPENDIX. 337 

The six lectures on the Haskell foundation were 
delivered in the Hall of the General Assembly's 
Institution, in the northern part of Calcutta, and 
half of them were also given in the London Mis- 
sion's Institution in the southern quarter of the city. 
In addition, lectures, sermons, and addresses, on 
such topics as "The Spiritual World of Shakes- 
peare," "The Parliament of Religions," "Human 
Restlessness and Christ its Quieter," "The Comfort 
of Christian Theism" were delivered before asso- 
ciations of students and other bodies. Almost 
every morning there were personal interviews with 
representatives of various religions. Very cordial 
receptions were given to Dr. and Mrs. Barrows by 
the widow of Keshub Chunder Sen and her 
daughter, the Maharani of Kuch Behar, on the 
anniversary of Mr. Sen's last public service; by 
Mr. Mozoomdar, the present leader of the New 
Dispensation, and by others. 

On the 8th of February, the Calcutta Missionary 
Conference recorded the following deliverance: 

The Conference desire to put on record their sense of the 
very great service Dr. Barrows has rendered to the cause 
of Christianity in India by the six lectures on Mrs. Haskell's 
Foundation which he delivered in Calcutta on the Univer- 
sality of the Christian Religion. They were distinguished 
by their high-toned earnestness, their incisive force, their 
brave and unambiguous outspokenness, their thorough 
grasp of the great truths they handled, their practical value 
as a contribution to Christian apologetics, their profound 
learning and sweet persuasiveness. In them, the inaugu- 
rating series of the lectureship, were fulfilled the prom- 
ises made at its inception. They were distinguished by the 
scholarly and withal friendly, temperate and conciliatory 
manner in which opponents of Christianity were referred to, 



33 8 CHRISTIANITT, THE WORLD-RELIGION. 

and by the fraternal spirit which animated all allusions to 
the devotees of other religions. While the rightful claims 
of Christianity were set forth without compromise or hesi- 
tation, they were at the same time set forth in such a way 
as to secure the favorable interest of the many who would 
not acknowledge these claims. The Conference were also 
struck by the untiring activity which Dr Barrows mani- 
fested during his short stay of fourteen days in Calcutta, 
for during that period he addressed as many as twenty-two 
audiences in the same earnest forceful manner, never spar- 
ing himself, or in any way compromising his position as a 
Christian lecturer, desirous of winning souls for the Lord 
Jesus. Dr. and Mrs. Barrows carry with them wherever 
they go the best wishes and the prayers of the members of 
the Calcutta Missionary Conference. 

The Conference desire to place also on record their 
hope that the six "Barrows Lectures" be printed in a cheap 
form and widely circulated in single lectures and also as a 
book containing all six; and that those which are to follow 
on the Foundation may be of the same type and equally 
useful to the missionary cause. 

In expressing their high appreciation of Dr. Barrows as 
a Christian lecturer, the Conference would not forget their 
obligations to the good Christian lady, Mrs. Caroline E. 
Haskell, who so liberally founded the Barrows Lectures, 
and to the members of the University of Chicago who 
secured Dr. John Henry Barrows to inaugurate the Lec- 
tureship. The Conference send their greetings to Mrs. 
Haskell, and wish her a long, useful and happy life in the 
Lord's service on earth, and that thus be richly supplied 
unto her the entrance into the eternal Kingdom of our 
Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. 

In a farewell address Mr. Mozoomdar said: 

Whatever the occasion be, we thank him for com- 
ing here, and with the deepest gratitude thank that benefi- 
cent and bountiful lady, Mrs. Haskell, whose endowed 
lectureship has brought Dr. Barrows to India. . . . The 
finished product of American culture, what he places 
before us, as on an altar, is full of the sweetness and light, 



APPENDIX. 339 

the reasonableness, the tireless energy, and above all the 
brotherly kindliness and human love which we get from so 
few foreigners, but, getting, we know how to appreciate. 
Yes, his words and example will lead us in one of the many 
paths which wind on to that high and distant goal whereto 
new India, revived India, spiritual India is striving to 
make its pilgrimage. 

In addition to the value of Dr. Barrows's own ser- 
vices, it has been a distinct advantage to the pur- 
pose of his visit that Mrs. Barrows accompanied him. 
After two weeks of constant speaking in Calcutta, 
a few days of rest were enjoyed at Darjeeling, in 
sight of the Himalayas. After this Dr. Barrows 
visited Lucknow, where two lectures were deliv- 
ered ; Cawnpore; Delhi, where he spoke four times; 
Lahore, where five addresses were given ; Amrit- 
sar; Agra, where he delivered five addresses; Jey- 
pore, Ajmere, Indore, Ahmednagar; Poona, where 
he gave ten lectures and addresses; Bangalore, Vel- 
lore, and Madras. 

In Delhi his addresses were delivered in St. 
Stephen's College, of the Cambridge Mission. In 
Lahore his first lecture was presided over by Dr. J. 
Sime, the Director of Public Instruction in the 
Panjab ; the second was presided over by the 
Bishop of Lahore; and the third by Colonel Robin- 
son, the British Commissioner. In Agra he gave 
his addresses at St. John's College of the Church 
Missionary Society and at the Government Agra 
College. At Indore Dr. and Mrs. Barrows were 
the recipients of very kind attentions from the 
Maharajah Holkar, and from the members of the 
Brahmo Samaj. At Ahmednagar their time was 
largely spent in studying Missions. In Poona he 



34° CHRISTIANITY, THE WORLD-RELIGION. 

had a great reception from the leading gentlemen 
of the non-Christian communities at the General 
Library. At the close of his final lecture in Poona, 
Dr. Mackichan, President of Wilson College, Bom- 
bay, earnestly commended the lectures to the can- 
did attention of thoughtful Hindus as being of ex- 
ceptional worth. 

In a very cordial editorial account in the Banga- 
lore Daily Post of Dr. Barrows's visit to Banga- 
lore, is the following: 

As was observed by Mr. Slater in the hall last evening, 
three such Christian lectures, so comprehensive and eru- 
dite, so eloquent and ornate, so earnest and persuasive, 
generous and sympathetic, have probably never before 
been delivered in Bangalore. They were altogether unique 
of their kind. It requires a cultivated and historical fac- 
ulty, a keen literary taste and fair acquaintance with his- 
torical Christianity to intelligently follow and really 
appreciate Dr. Barrows in his wide, deep, and masterly 
treatment of his many-sided subject. Seldom have edu- 
cated Hindus listened to such a sublime, powerful, and bold 
exposition of the truths and claims of the religion of Christ. 

In Bangalore Dr. Barrows was the recipient of 
graceful courtesies from the Cosmopolitan Club, 
composed of Hindu gentlemen of various creeds. 
At his lecture in Vellore, the Mohammedan mayor 
of the city presided. A great public demonstra- 
tion was given in the Victoria Town Hall, Madras, 
on February 15th. The address of welcome was 
signed by a large committee representing many 
faiths, but all united in the spirit of friendliest 
courtesy and appreciation toward the president of 
the Parliament of Religions. His opening lecture 
on February 16th, crowded the Victoria Town Hall 



APPEXDIX. 341 

to its utmost capacity, and the audiences remained 
very large to the close. His visit to Madras was 
in some respects the climax of his work in India. 
Great interest had been awakened by the recent re- 
turn and addresses of Swami Vivekananda, so that 
religious discussion prevailed in the bazaar, the 
colleges, the homes, and the journals. A large re- 
ception was given Dr. Barrows while in Madras, by 
the Triplicane Literary Club, and other receptions 
by the India Social Reformers and the native 
Christians. 

From Madras Dr. Barrows visited Salem and 
Coimbatore. After this he went to Trichur, on the 
Malabar coast, where he was the guest of the 
Prince and Patriarch Nouri, of the Syrian Church. 
This ancient church, through its highest officials 
and its large membership, gave Dr. Barrows a most 
cordial and brilliant welcome. 

His course then led him to Madura, where a cor- 
dial greeting awaited him from Christians and non- 
Christians. Besides several lectures in Madura, 
he addressed the Christian College in the neigh- 
boring village of Pasumalai. The impression made 
by his work here is shown in what Rev. J. P. 
Jones, D. D., of Pasumalai, wrote to The Indepen- 
dent, of New York: 

The recent visit of Dr. Barrows and his eloquent, power- 
ful lectures have brought cheer and courage to every mis- 
sionary in India, and have done not a little to give a right 
view of our faith to many who have recently been carried 
away by Vedantic platitudes and fallacies. America is to 
be congratulated upon establishing the first lectureship of 
this kind, and at a time when it is so much needed. And 
Dr. Barrows is to be congratulated upon the conspicuous 



34 2 CHRISTIANITY, THE WORLD-RELIGION. 

success with which he has opened this lectureship that is 
honored by his name. 

Dr. Barrows's closing work in India was a series 
of lectures and addresses in Palamacotta and Tin- 
nevelly, where the native Christians built a special 
pandal or tabernacle. 

On the 1 2th and 13th of March he lectured to 
large audiences, many of them Buddhists, in Wesley 
College, Colombo. Arriving in Japan on the 5th of 
April, Dr. Barrows discovered that there was an 
eager desire for the delivery of his lectures in the 
Island Empire. His nineteen days in Japan were 
fully occupied with work similar to that which he 
carried on in India. One lecture was delivered in 
Kobe, on the Inland Sea, four addresses in Osaka, 
seven in Kioto, three in Yokohama, and seven in 
Tokio. Receptions were given him by the mission- 
aries in Osaka, Kioto, Yokohama, and Tokio. In 
the beautiful Botanical Garden in the Japanese cap- 
ital a reception was extended Dr. Barrows by rep- 
resentatives of the Christian, Buddhist, Shintoist, 
and Confucianist religions. The welcome accorded 
in Japan was similar to that in India. Resolutions 
were offered by the Missionary Conference in Sen- 
dai heartily approving Dr. Barrows's work and ex- 
pressing the hope that a Japanese Lectureship 
might be established similar in spirit and purpose 
to the India Lectureship. On May 3d, Dr. Bar- 
rows lectured on Christ, the Universal Man and 
Saviour, in the Union Church, Honolulu. On May 
10th he reached San Francisco. 

Before Dr. Barrows left India the call became so 



APPENDIX. 343 

loud and general for the immediate production of 
an inexpensive edition of the lectures that he gave 
them to the Christian Literature Society of India, 
of which Dr. Murdoch is secretary, and five thou- 
sand copies were published, and these have been 
largely taken and are doing good work in this 
country. 

The standpoint of the lectures is clearly indi- 
cated by their general title : ' 'Christianity, the World- 
Religion. " This thesis has been developed and 
maintained in a large and kindly way, by a mas- 
terly massing of facts, by forcible argument, and 
by a most sympathetic spirit toward all that is good 
in every faith. Some of those who were not pres- 
ent at the Parliament of Religions have been sur- 
prised at the strong, unhesitating utterances of Dr. 
Barrows in regard to the Christian faith as sure to 
become the Universal Religion. But the series has 
been everywhere received with marked interest and 
attention. The following are examples of what 
has been said in various organs of different relig- 
ious communities: 

Unity and the Minister, the organ of the Church 
of the New Dispensation, said: 

Dr. Barrows's presence here was imposing and enchant- 
ing, and gave an impetus to the mind of the thoughtful 
portion of his Christian and non-Christian hearers. . . . 
We knew he was a Christian of the orthodox school, and 
his recent lectures have not disappointed us, but increased 
our admiration for him. Our admiration for Dr. Barrows 
was the greater, because, being a Christian of what may 
be called the orthodox school, his heart was so liberal, so 
world-embracing, so many-sided. 



344 CHRISTIANITY, THE WORLD-RELIGION. 

The Indian Christian Herald, the organ of the 
Bengali Christians, said: 

The incidents of the visit of Dr. Barrows to Calcutta 
have brought into demonstrative relief, the mighty hold 
more or less distinctly realized, of Christianity on the 
national conscience. The mission of Dr. Barrows, it was 
well understood, was solely and wholly to commend to the 
people the fitness of Christianity to become the world- 
rehgion. Never before had a Hindu Maharaja's palace 
been thrown open to celebrate the welcome of one with so 
exclusive a message to deliver. Never before had Hindus 
Mohammedans, Parsis, Buddhists, Jains, and Brahmos vied 
with Christians in wishing godspeed to so single-purposed 
a herald. Nor was the spell broken with the development 
of the mission. The prayer which, for the first time 
went up from the palatial hall, "May the spirit of Jesus 
prevail still more widely and pervade still more deeply " 
was abundantly answered. The gospel lectures found 
among their hearers, men of light and leading, Hindu 
Brahmo, and Parsi, who had never before listened to a 
distinctive, evangelical appeal. Nay, some of them were 
delivered under the acquiescing presidency of Brahmo and 
Hindu representatives, while all elicited from non-Chris- 
tians and Christians alike, repeated plaudits of approval. 
We are firmly persuaded that Dr. Barrows has been used 
of God to draw out, and make patent, some of the invisible 
trophies of Missions, and that the outlook is bound to be 
an enthusiastic revival of the missionary spirit in the 
Homes of Missions. He has taken his stand on the same 
evangelical foundations which are exhibited in the apos- 
tolic mission of the missionaries. Dr. Barrows has illus- 
trated, further, that, while the recognition of truth, wher- 
ever it was found, was an imperative obligation on the part 
of every true man, such recognition, properly viewed, was 
a source of strength, rather than of weakness, to Chris- 
tianity. 



APPENDIX. 345 

The Indian Witness, of Calcutta, said : 

We very much doubt whether India has ever been 
favored with so worthy a presentation of the Christian 
faith. . . . The lectures are a magnificent contribution 
to the Christian evidences, well worthy of a permanent 
place in literature. Many competent critics have pro- 
nounced the lecture on the Universal Book the finest pre- 
sentation of the incomparable place in the world's life and 
literature of the Christian Scriptures which they have read 
or heard. 

Of the closing lecture, the Indian Witness re- 
marks that it 

Was a masterly presentation of the claims of the Chris- 
tian faith upon all men, and in every way a worthy comple- 
tion of what must be regarded as the ablest course of lec- 
tures on Christian subjects to which the Indian commun- 
ity, of the present generation at least, has been permitted 
to listen. 

The Indian Evangelical Review, of Calcutta, said : 

Opportunity of discussion and controversy was not given 
on the floor of the Parliament; but the opportunity was 
given and largely availed of on the larger arena of the pub- 
lic press and on public platforms, with the result that 
instead of the missionaries suffering in reputation or the 
work of foreign missions being discredited, it is "the pic- 
turesque fascinating orators who championed the cause" 
of the non-Christian religions who have been discredited, 
as is always the case when the libelled Christian has got 
the indictment or book which his adversary has written. 

But what are the net results of the Parliament of 1893? 
We would answer, first of all, a widespread approach toward 
the Christian platform on the part of the more educated 
members of the non-Christian community. They are 
pleased with the Parliament of Religions as an expression 
of Christian love and sympathy towards, and interest in, 
the devotees of non-Christian religions. Love begets love, 
and sympathy begets gratitude. This love and this sym- 



34 6 CHRISTIANITY, THE WORLD-RELIGION. 

pathy have drawn many towards Christ who previously 
stood aloof. In the second place, to the Parliament of 
Religions we owe the able, evangelical and apostolic lec- 
tures of the Rev. Dr. John Henry Barrows. And we add 
that different from the lectures of all other temporary vis- 
itors to India, Dr. Barrows's lectures will live and be a 
power and an arsenal of munition long after we and the 
lecturer have left behind us all earthly activities. They 
made a deep and lasting impression upon those who heard 
them delivered and many of these were men who never 
heard Christian addresses before; we believe they will be 
much more widely known, and known for generations yet 
to come, as a printed volume. In the third place, we 
expect such Christian lectures to be delivered every second 
year in perpetuity on Mrs. Haskell's Foundation, and issue 
in the publication of works of a permanent apologetic value, 
prepared specially for the intelligent English-educated 
young men of India. The first series of the Haskell-Bar- 
rows Lectures, we hope will prove a true earnest and sam- 
ple of those which are to follow. We desire no better j 
none more loyal to the truth as it is in Jesus, and none 
more faithful to the non-Christian faiths and their follow- 
ers. Another good thing which Dr. Barrows has done by 
his lectures was to correct untruths, and to supplement 
half-truths industriously circulated by Christians and non- 
Christians. This itself is no small gain. One word more: 
the Calcutta Missionary Conference which met after five of 
the six lectures were delivered, were enthusiastic and 
unanimous in their appreciation of the lectures and in 
praise of the University of Chicago, whose commissioner 
he is, and of Mrs. Caroline E. Haskell, by whose Christian 
liberality the Lectureship was founded. 

The Hindu, of Madras, one of the ablest of the 
non-Christian journals of India, said: 

Dr. Barrows is certainly to be congratulated on the 
impression he has produced as a lecturer. There is an 
unanimous feeling that he possesses great powers of expo- 
sition and a thorough knowledge of his subject. More 
than all, he has evidently a great love for the people of 



APPENDIX. 347 

this country and some appreciation for their good quali- 
ties, and especially for their intellectual keenness and 
aptitude for metaphysical controversy. 

But no reference to the lectures has been more 
honorable to India than the noble sentiment of 
the Indian Social Reformer, the courageous organ 
of the reformers in Madras. Differing from Dr. 
Barrows in standpoint and in belief, this paper 
spoke the following true words about the lecturer's 
utterances: 

It has, we see, been made a point against Dr. Barrows 
that he claims a position for Christianity superior to that 
of any other religion. We are, of course, not prepared to 
concede that claim. But we never expected that Dr. Bar- 
rows would condescend to waive that claim for his own 
faith, and if he had done so, we, for one, should not have 
very much cared to listen to what he has to say. 

And we regard as the outcome of sheer intellectual 
indolence and pusillanimity, the opinion which is fashion- 
able nowadays that one conviction, one faith, is as good 
as another. We regard this easy-going fashion of mind 
as fraught with the greatest danger to the future of this 
country. For it means isolation; it spells death. The 
vice, wherever and in whatever form it prevails, is the 
child of pure selfishness. 

The religion of the future will no doubt have affinities 
with each of the existing religions, just as the human race 
has affinities with the anthropoid apes. We, therefore, 
welcome Dr. Barrows's statement of the claims of his 
faith. If they are exaggerated or imaginary, they will go 
to the wall of their own accord. If they are real, on the 
other hand, it may so happen that some courageous souls 
that have been seeking the light, and not found it, may be 
impressed with them and may be led to transform them- 
selves into the receptacle of a greatness such as an exalted 
religious idea alone can bestow. We invite our friends 
to give their unbiased hearing to Dr. Barrows. To be 
afraid of being converted to his views is cowardice. No 



348 CHRISTIANITT, THE WORLD-RELIGION. 

man who is afraid of having to relinquish his preposses- 
sions need call himself a religious man or a lover of truth. 
His proper place is in the vegetable kingdom, where to be 
uprooted is to perish. The human vegetable is the most 
despicable of human things. 

The motto of the Parliament of Religions was: 
"Have we not all one Father? hath not one God 
created us?" It is true. There is but one God, 
and He is the Father of every one of us, and He 
will draw all His children more and more to Him- 
self and more and more to one another. It is in 
love to Him and in love to India that these Lectures 
were devised and were prepared, and have been de- 
livered, and are now given to the press. The 
present writer counts it an honor and a privilege to 
write these words of introduction. He believes 
that many in our beloved India will read the Lec- 
tures with thoughtfulness and earnestness, and find 
them a help in becoming intimate with God our 
Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. "And this is 
life eternal that they might know Thee, the only 
true God, and Jesus Christ whom thou hast sent." 
And, before reading our brother's message about 
our Father and His revelation of Himself, let us 
humbly and sincerely pray the universal prayer 
which was daily prayed at the World's First Parlia- 
ment of Religions: ''Our Father which art in 
heaven, hallowed be Thy name. Thy kingdom 
come. Thy will be done in earth, as it is in heaven. 
Give us this day our daily bread. And forgive us 
our debts, as we forgive our debtors. And lead us 
not into temptation, but deliver us from evil: for 
Thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the 
glory, for ever. — Amen." 

Ahmednagar, August 25, 1897. 



NOTES. 



NOTES. 

LECTURE I. 

BIBLIOGRAPHY FOR FIRST LECTURE. 

On the general topic of the religious element in man, see: 
Saussaye, Manual of the Science of Religion, Chapter 3. 

(A summary of the whole discussion between 

Spencer, Tyler, Max Miiller, and others.) 
D'Alviella, Hibbert Lectures, 1891, Origin and Growth 

of the Conception of God, Lecture 2. 
James Freeman Clarke, Ten Great Religions, Vol. II, 

p. 17 ff. 
S. H. Kellogg, Genesis and Growth of Religion, Lecture 2. 

On the development of the religious element in man, see: 
Menzies, History of Religion, Part I. 

Baring-Gould, Origin and Development of Religious Belief. 
Two volumes. 

On the necessity of religion, see: 

John Caird, Introduction to the Philosophy of Religion^ 
Chapter 4. 

Pfleiderer, Philosophy and Development of Religion, 
Gifford Lectures, Vol. I. 

Pfleiderer, Philosophy of Religion, Vol. Ill, Section I. 

See also upon the general subject, E. Caird, The Evo- 
lution of Religion, Vol. I, Lecture 1. 

Jevons, Introduction to the History of Religion, Chapters 
1-3, etc. 

C. M. Tyler, D. D., Bases of Religious Belief 

On Islam and Buddhism as missionary religions, see: 

C. R. Haines, Isldm as a Missionary Religion, S. P. C. K. f 
1889. 

351 



35 2 CHRISTIANITY, THE WORLD-RELIGION. 

A. Scott, D. D., Buddhism and Christianity, Lecture 6, 

p. 318 ff. 
Dods, Mohammed, Buddha, and Christ, passim. 
On the universal character of Christianity, see: 

Fremantle, The World as the Subject of Redemption. 
Kuenen, National Religions and Universal Religions, 

p. 292. 
G. M. Grant, The Religions of the World in Relation to 

Christianity. 

Note i, p. 26. 

Max Muller writes: 

" A distinction has been made for us between religion 
and philosophy, and, so far as form and object are con- 
cerned, I do not deny that such a distinction may be useful. 
But when we look to the subjects with which religion is con- 
cerned, they are, and always have been, the very subjects 
on which philosophy has dwelt, nay, from which philosophy 
has sprung. If religion depends for its very life on the 
sentiment or the perception of the infinite within the finite 
and beyond the finite, who is to determine the legitimacy 
of that sentiment or of that perception, if not the philoso- 
pher ? Who is to determine the powers which man possesses 
for apprehending the finite by his senses, for working up 
his single and therefore finite impressions into concepts by 
his reason, if not the philosopher? And who, if not the 
philosopher, is to find out whether man can claim the 
right of asserting the existence of the infinite, in spite of the 
constant opposition of sense and reason, taking these 
words in their usual meaning? We should damnify relig- 
ion if we separated it from philosophy ; we should ruin 
philosophy if we divorced it from religion." Hibbert 
Lectures, 1878, The Origin and Growth of Religion, pp. 337-8. 

In speaking of the great Hindu philosophies, as contain- 
ing matters of chiefly intellectual interest, I do not mean 
to deny their religious significance, nor do I express an 
opinion favorable to any divorce of religion from philoso- 
phy. I hope that in these lectures I have, at least, indi- 
cated the fundamental principles of the Christian philosophy. 
Going to India with a supremely practical purpose, and 



notes. 353 

realizing that the Hindu mind has made religion chiefly a 
matter of speculation, I felt that my best service would be 
rendered by setting forth the ethical and spiritual aspects 
of the Christian faith. The following citations from men 
who know the present condition and needs of thoughtful 
Hindus are of interest. 

In one of his valuable reports of work among educated 
classes, the Rev. T. E. Slater, of Bangalore, says: 

" Christianity and Hinduism are now meeting face to 
face; and the great lament which we as missionaries have 
to raise, is in respect to the tone of mind generally prevalent 
in the country. To so many minds, religious truths appear 
to be little more than the material on which to exercise the 
ingenuity of controversy and speculation. There is 
enough and to spare of criticism and discussion ; but serious 
thought and earnest inquiry are very rare. Besides the 
spirit of false patriotism that is abroad, the materialistic 
tendency of the age deadens the concern for spiritual 
things. Interest in merely worldly pursuits and in 
amassing wealth seems to be just now all-absorbing, and 
the ' gospel of getting on ' gains more hearers than any 
other." 

In a lecture on Universal Religion, delivered in Banga- 
lore, November, 1896, p. 7, Rev. Edward P. Rice, B. A., 
says: 

"One not unfrequently meets with those who say that 
a man cannot judge whether his ancestral religion is true 
or not unless he reads all the Sastras and the commentaries 
thereon. The reflection which such a statement at once 
suggests is that the religion which requires a pundit to 
understand it and to see its reasonableness may be a very 
profound one, but it cannot be the Universal Religion." 

In a lecture on Liberal Education in India, p. 19, Pro- 
fessor N. G. Welinkar, of Wilson College, Bombay, has ably 
shown some of the weaknesses of the present training of 
the Hindus: 

"The greatest lack in the education imparted in the 
majority of Indian colleges is the religious element; and 
therefore in common with many enlightened friends of 
liberal education in India, both Christian and non-Chris- 



354 CHRISTIANITY, THE WORLD-RELIGION. 

tian, I rejoice at the existence in the midst of our educa- 
tional system of missionary colleges where the essentially 
religious basis of all sound education — and particularly of 
western education — is steadily kept in view, and where 
those great truths are presented to the rising generations 
of Indians, on the acceptance of which alone depends all 
progress in the paths of true enlightenment and knowl- 
edge." 

Note 2, p. 27. 

"Thus, beneath and beyond what we may call our 
secular consciousness in all its forms, beneath and beyond 
all our consciousness of finite objects and of the subjective 
interests and desires that bind us to them, there is always 
a religious consciousness, the consciousness of an infinite 
or Divine Being, who is the source of all existence and of 
all knowledge, and in whom we and all things 'live and 
move and have our being.'" The Evolution of Religion, 
Edward Caird, Vol. I. p. 85. 

"The theological interpretation of the universe is, with 
the chief thinkers from Plato to Hegel, its final interpre- 
tation, the natural interpretation elevated in and by the 
supernatural, which last is itself enriched by every discov- 
ery of natural science. When nature is seen to be God 
acting, so that each discovery in natural science is also a 
contribution to natural theology, it seems evident that col- 
lision between advancing science and religious faith is not 
possible." Philosophy of Theism, A. C. Fraser, p. 296. 

Note 3, p. 28. 

"The thought and feeling of divine immanence in all 
natural appearances ; of the finite being pervaded by and 
sustained in what is infinite, — comes out, in ancient and 
modern poetry and religion, as the intense expression of a 
theism so conscious of the uniqueness and pervadingness 
of the Divine as to refuse to place God apart — one among 
many. Hebrew literature, with its abundant representa- 
tions of God, still leads up to the idea of divine presence 
latent in the heart of reality." Philosophy of Theism, A. C. 
Fraser, p. 152. 



notes. 355 

Note 4, p. 30. 

"The sea of Faith 
Was once, too, at the full, and round earth's shore 
Lay like the folds of a bright girdle furl'd. 
But now I only hear 

Its melancholy, long, withdrawing roar, 
Retreating, to the breath 

Of the night-wind, down the vast edges drear 
And naked shingles of the world." 

— Dover Beach, by Matthew Arnold. 

It is now evident that Matthew Arnold and others mis- 
took a temporary backward current for a permanent ten- 
dency. It is not unusual for Hindu journals to quote from 
skeptical European writers of a generation ago who do not 
represent present opinion. To a coosiderable degree India 
gave credit to incorrect reports made by a few returning 
delegates to the Parliament of Religions. On reaching 
Bombay I had occasion to speak as follows: 

" The Christian people of America were hospitable to 
the delegates from other lands and faiths, and heard and 
read with much interest and genuine sympathy the repre- 
sentations of non-Christian religions. This interest and 
courtesy were, in some cases, misinterpreted. Some of the 
Japanese Buddhist delegates returned home with the idea, 
which they spread far and wide, that America was losing 
faith in Christianity and was hungering for the bread of 
life which Buddhism had to offer. Nothing could be more 
absurd. America is not losing faith in the Christian relig- 
ion. Its progress in the United States during the last 
twenty-five years has been more rapid than ever before. 
In the building of new churches; in the vast additions to 
church membership, numbering nearly half a million every 
year; in the building of mission-schools in our great cities, 
and the pushing of mission-work on our wide frontier of 
new settlements; in the spread of Sunday Schools; in the 
marvellous growth of the Christian Endeavor movement, 
and of similar young people's societies, which probably 
number three millions of members in the United States 
alone; in the great sums given to Christian colleges ; and in 



35 6 CHRISTIANITT, THE WORLD-RELIGION. 

the many millions of dollars annually raised to send to 
other lands the messengers of the Gospel, — in all this, and 
in the steadily growing purpose to put the gentle and 
humane teachings of Jesus into the daily life, and to make 
them effective in the relations of men with each other, we 
have indisputable evidences that Christianity is a grow- 
ingly powerful, beneficent influence. 

"People going to America from the Orient are easily 
liable to misunderstand the interest and courtesy with 
which they are received. Curious to hear all truth, the 
American people listen eagerly to lectures on the Vedanta 
philosophy or on Esoteric Buddhism, and continue to go 
to their own churches, cherish their own Christian faith, 
and do their own Christian work as before. Naturally our 
Oriental visitors are most earnestly courted by Americans 
who, for one reason or another, are not in sympathy with 
evangelical Christian beliefs. And I have noticed that 
persons who have gone away from historic Christianity 
sometimes think that everybody is about to follow them. 
But this is not so. Our carefully prepared Government 
census shows that the evangelical believers in America 
outnumber the non-evangelical of all denominations more 
than one hundred to one." Times of India, Dec. 17, 1896. 

Note 5, p. 31. 

The following remarks by one of the most thoughtful of 
the American missionaries in India indicate a change which 
is both marked and hopeful: 

"A few years ago the raising of this question [the origin 
of Hinduism] would, in itself, have been considered a dis- 
ability in one who aspired to become a missionary. It was 
laid down as a fundamental postulate of his belief that 
Hinduism was of the devil, and that, coming from below, 
it must be shunned as a study and denounced root and 
branch as a thing purely satanic. It is not too much to 
say that this theory has entirely given way to a more 
rational belief." Rev. J. P. Jones, D.D., in The Harvest 
Field, March, 1897, p. 83. 

" Modern scholarship is practically of one voice in main- 
taining that God hath not left himself without witness 



notes. 357 

among the many nations of the earth — a witness that has 
indeed been comparatively feeble — a revelation that is dim 
and star-like as compared with the noon-day brightness of 
the Sun of Righteousness in the Christian religion. The 
day has come when the missionary must accept and 
believe that God has been dealing directly with this people 
through the many centuries of their history, leading them 
to important truth, even though their evil hearts and worse 
lives have caused them, in many cases, to 'change the 
truth of God into a lie and worship, and serve the creature 
more than the Creator.' Many of the truths which are 
imbedded in the religion of the land find their solution in 
no other hypothesis than this." Rev. J. P. Jones, D.D., in 
The Harvest Field, March, 1897, p. 84. 

Note 6, p. 32. 

In considering Mohammedanism, Hinduism, Confucian- 
ism, and Buddhism as the faiths which dispute with Chris- 
tianity the conquest of the globe, I do not mean to imply 
any lack of appreciation of other religions, some of which 
may be considered as of a higher type than these four. The 
Sikhs of India are an interesting people and their religion 
contains noble elements, but their faith is not so wide- 
spread as to reach and influence even the land of its birth. 

"The Sikh religion may be considered as localized in 
the Panjab, for though there are members of this faith in 
most provinces, 98 per cent of them are returned from its 
birthplace." General Report on the Census of India, 1891, 
p. 176. 

Parsiism, more ancient than the religion of the Sikhs, 
and one of the highest forms of non-Christian faith, has not 
extended itself widely enough to be deemed even an Indian 
faith. 

"As the Sikhs appertain specially to the Panjab, so the 
Zoroastrian religion is almost confined to the Western 
Presidency and states surrounding it. The early settle- 
ments of the Parsis at Nausari, in the Baroda State, and in 
Surat and Broach, still contain about 30.4 per cent of the 
entire community, and their original fire temple at Udwada 
on the Surat coast has maintained its supreme repute. 



35^ CHRISTIANITY, THE WORLD-RELIGION. 

But the headquarters of the race have been gradually 
shifted to Bombay, where there are now 52.8 per cent 
returned." General Report on the Census of India, 1891, 
p. 176. 

The Jains have close connection in several ways both 
with Buddhism and Hinduism. Their benevolence and their 
kindness toward animals are highly praiseworthy. This 
faith numbers a million and a half adherents. 

"It is remarkable that in the country of its birth, Par- 
asnath in South Bihar, there should be no more than one 
thousand four hundred and eighty-seven of this religion 
returned at the census. From evidence indirectly afforded 
by applications made from the neighboring tract just be- 
fore the census, it seems highly probable that in this part 
of the country, instead of desiring to emphasize the dis- 
tinction of their religion from Brahmanism, as was the case 
at Delhi, etc., the Jains are anxious to efface it, as their so- 
cial position is evidently based on caste orthodoxy within 
the Brahmanic fold. If this tendency be true, it will ac- 
count for the disappearance of the Jains into the general 
sea of Hinduism." General Report on the Census of India, 
1 891, p. 176. 

"The Jains are widespread over India, though they form 
an appreciable numerical element in the population only in 
Rajputana, Ajmer, and Western India, and nowhere reach 
five per cent of the total. It is worth notice that they seem 
to flourish most where they have devoted themselves to 
trade and commerce, and are weak in number where they 
have become agriculturists." General Report on the Cen- 
sus of India, 1891, p. 176. 

Note 7, p. 38. 

"The Christian ought not to rest satisfied with the 
vague general idea that Hinduism is a form of heathenism 
with which he has nothing to do, save to help in destroying 
it. Let him try to realize the ideas of the Hindus regarding 
God, and the soul, and sin, and salvation, and heaven, and 
hell, and the many sore trials of this mortal life. He will 
then certainly have a much more vivid perception of the 
Divine origin and transcendent importance of his own 



NOTES. 359 

religion. Further, he will then extend a helping hand to 
his eastern brother with far more of sensibility and tender- 
ness; and, in proportion to the measure of his loving 
sympathy will doubtless be the measure of his success. A 
yearning heart will accomplish more than the most cogent 
argument." Non-Christian Religions of the World — The 
Hindu Religion, J. Murray Mitchell, p. 4. 

Note 8, p. 39. 

One of the foremost men of India is Behramji M. Mala- 
bari, editor of The Spectator of Bombay. As poet, scholar, 
and reformer he is esteemed both in Great Britain and 
in India. In a sketch of his life and times, by R. P. 
Karkaria, we learn that he came under the powerful influ- 
ence of Rev. Dr. Wilson. 

"Dr. Wilson, then, failed to make him a Christian, but 
he succeeded in making him a better man, inspired by all 
that is good and true in the Christian faith superadded to 
that of his own. And if the venerable missionary had lived 
longer he would certainly have been proud of the moral 
and religious development of his protege." India, Forty 
Years of Progress and Reform, R. P. Karkaria, p. 80. 

Malabari has labored not only to promote social reform 
in India, but to bring men of different faiths and races into 
more fraternal relations. His appreciation of the work of 
Prof. Max Miiller in the same direction is well known. 

"He has labored all his life to bring about a union 
amongst nations. That union has long been aimed at. A 
marriage between East and West was arranged even before 
the days of the illustrious William Jones. Even the silver 
wedding is gone and past. In that work of union you 
trace the hand of a higher power than of man. Modern 
Indian history teaches you that. But I may say that Max 
Miiller and his contemporaries have contributed largely to 
bringing to the surface the practical result of that process 
of, let us hope, progressive union. By his Rig -Veda 
Samhita, and other works, Max Miiller has given new 
birth, so to say, to Sanskrit: he has resuscitated, I say he 
has helped to regenerate, the language and literature of 
our land." Behramji M. Malabari, D. Gidumal, pp. 162-3. 



360 CHRISTIANITY, THE WORLD-RELIGION. 

The more enlightened minds of India are not wanting 
in a clear, comprehensive and grateful understanding of 
the advantages which have come to India from her con- 
tact with western civilization. 

"Macaulay and Bentinck were justified in their expecta- 
tions of the enormous benefits to accrue to the Indian races 
from English education. During the last two generations 
India has gone through a new and unique development, 
fraught with momentous consequences to itself and to the 
British Empire. Under Western influences the former 
traditional moorings are already being gradually left 
behind, and the educated classes are drifting towards 
another goal." India, Forty Years of Progress and Reform, 
R. P. Karkaria, p. 13. 

"The many noble deeds of philanthropy and self-denying 
benevolence which Christian missionaries have performed 
in India, and the various intellectual, social, and moral 
improvements which they have effected, need no flattering 
comment; they are treasured in the gratitude of the nation, 
and can never be forgotten or denied." Lectures in India, 
Keshub Chunder Sen, p. 15. 

Note 9, p. 40. 

In an interview published in The Madras Standard, 
Feb. 13th, 1897, I said: I am profoundly impressed with 
the lack of unity prevailing in India. It is an aggregation 
of peoples, governments, religions, and classes where 
the divisions are woeful indeed. It is perfectly evident 
that, if the wise, restraining hand of British rule were 
removed, chaos would prevail and the Hindus and Moham- 
medans in some places would be flying at each others' 
throats. There are few countries where religious intoler- 
ance seems so general and cruel as here. India is living 
in a state of society which, so far as religious tolerance is 
concerned, appears to us Americans most distressing. The 
alphabet of true toleration has yet to be learnt by great 
sections of the community. I know that Hinduism is will- 
ing that men should hold a variety of incongruous creeds, 
but religion is not merely a creed; it is also a life where 
the conditions and environments ought to be in harmony 



NOTES. 361 

with the inner convictions. The religions of India have 
been trying here, as at the Parliament of Religions, to 
make themselves as Christian as possible. But when mem- 
bers of the Hindu community, convinced of the truth and 
rightful claims of Christianity, prepare to confess Christ and 
enter into fellowship with His people, these Christian dis- 
ciples still meet relentless and often cruel opposition. They 
are sometimes disowned, prohibited from seeing their 
own relations, deprived of just inheritances, assailed with 
falsehood, with blows, and now and then tortured. Some 
of the noblest specimens of human character and some 
of the finest and most enlightened intellects which I have 
met in any land are in the Native Christian Commu- 
nity of India. And I have reason to believe that there are 
many thousands of educated youths who are convinced that 
Christianity is true but who are still held back from de- 
claring their faith openly by reason of the cruel intolerance 
still prevailing. 

Note 10, p. 59. 

"When, after the long feuds and battles of the middle 
ages, Confucianism stepped the second time into the Land 
of Brave Scholars, it was no longer with the simple rules 
of conduct and ceremonial of the ancient days, nor was it 
as the ally of Buddhism." The Religions of Japan, Griffis, 
p. 136. 

"The new Confucianism came to Japan as the system of 
Chu Hi. For three centuries this system has already held 
sway over the intellect of China. For two centuries and a 
half it had dominated the minds of the Samurai so that 
the majority of them to-day, even with the new name of 
Shizoku, are Confucianists so far as they are anything." 
The Religions of Japan, Griffis, p. 136. 

"From the palace downward there was no centralization 
of authority or responsibility, no unity of counsel, no agree- 
ment as to action, no plan of campaign. Stupefied bewil- 
derment, helpless inertia, or arrogant contempt for the 
invader, prevailed alternately, sometimes simultaneously, 
in every yamen. Each man was absorbed in the effort to 
get the better of somebody else, and to make something for 



362 CHRISTIANITY, THE WORLD-RELIGION. 

his own pocket out of so paying a concern as a campaign. 
Viceroys swindled governors, governors swindled generals, 
and generals swindled subalterns. There were infinite and 
delicately-shaded grades of peculation. Of patriotism, or 
enthusiasm for the war, or loyalty to the dynasty, or self- 
respect for the race, there was not a sign. Chinese tele- 
graph-clerks sold important information to the Japanese; 
Chinese officers accepted bribes to retreat or to surrender." 
Proble?ns of the Far East, Geo. N. Curzon, M.P., p. 366. 

Note ii, p. 59. 

"The Absolute Religion must make no distinction 
between Jew and Gentile, Musselman and Kaffir, Christian 
and heathen, Arya and Mleccha, high caste and low caste, 
layman and ecclesiastic; but must deal with each individ- 
ual of the race as a man." Universal Religion, a lecture 
delivered at Bangalore in Nov. 1896, by Edward P. Rice, p. 6. 

Note 12, p. 60. 

"If Buddhism has gained such, amazing conquests over 
Oriental nations could not Christianity, with a similar but 
far superior humanity and self-sacrifice, and with the true 
Son of God to present, gain still greater victories? There 
seems nothing to prevent an Oriental who has hung on the 
words of Buddha from listening even more intently to the 
words of Christ. But he will not be induced to do so by 
denunciations of such a sweet and loving soul as Gautama. 
The preacher must arm himself with the best of Buddha's 
truths, and then show the higher in the teachings of Jesus. 
He must offer the Fatherhood of God, which the Hindu 
saint never mentally grasped, and the hope of a conscious 
living immortality, which the great Mystic may not fully 
have attained." The Unknown God, C. Loring Brace, p. 312. 



LECTURE II. 

BIBLIOGRAPHY FOR SECOND LECTURE. 

On the general subject of the effects of Christianity, see: 
Storrs, The Divine Origin of Christianity Indicated by Its 

Historical Effects. 
F. W. Farrar, The Witness of History to Christ. i 
Fairbairn, Religion in History and in Modern Life. 
C. Loring Brace, Gesta Christi. 
On Christianity and the Roman Empire, see: 

Merivale, Conversion of the Roman Empire, Boyle Lec- 
ture, 1864. 
Uhlhorn, Conflict of Christianity with Heathenism. 
The same, Christian Charity in the Ancient Church. 
Lecky, History of European Morals from Augustus to 
Charlemagne. 
On Christianity and Social Questions, see: 

Peabody, Ely, Henderson, and Gladden, in the Report 
of the Parliament of Religions. 
On Christian Missions, see: 

Warneck, History of Protestant Missions, translated by 

Thomas Smith, D.D., 1884. 
J. S. Dennis, Foreign Missions after a Century. 
J. S. Dennis, Christian Missions and Social Progress. 

(Very valuable.) 
A. C. Thompson, Protestant Missions, Their Rise and 

Early Progress. 
E. A. Lawrence, Modern Missions in the East. 
Report of World' s Congress of Missions, Chicago, 1893. 

Note i, p. 71. 

"The question is sometimes asked, What is the influence 
of Mohammedanism upon the moral character of Moslems? 

363 



364 CHRISTIANITY, THE WORLD-RELIGION. 

In reply to this question, it must be admitted that wherever 
it brings to its allegiance a grossly idolatrous people, espe- 
cially if they be fetish- or devil-worshipers, it does raise 
their moral status. Cannibalism and infanticide are abol- 
ished; idolatrous customs, degrading and immoral, are 
obliterated; certain fixed rules are enforced in respect to 
society and the State; thieves and murderers are severely 
punished; the use of intoxicating drinks is greatly dimin- 
ished if not absolutely prevented; children are educated to 
some extent and trained up as the worshipers of the true 
God; certain ideas of honor, courage and devotion are 
inculcated, and so the scale of morality is greatly ad- 
vanced ; and yet there is a limit to Moslem progress in morals 
a long way this side the goal of Christian ethics. The per- 
missions of the Koran in respect to polygamy, concubinage 
and divorce; the sanction of slavery and holy war, the 
example of Mohammed himself, the adoption of the prin- 
ciple that the end justifies the means — thereby consecrating 
every form of deception and lying, every sort of persecu- 
tion and violence to the cause of religion — these things 
effectually block the wheels of progress in ethical spheres, 
so that Moslem nations have hardly ever reached even the 
planes of moral purity occupied by the most degenerate 
Christian nations." Isldm, or the Religion of the Turk, 
E. M. Wherry, p. 59. 

Note 2, p. 80. 

"The Hinduism which I examined, for example, in 
Benares filled me with pity and distress. The hideous idol- 
atries which I have witnessed in many places appear to me 
thoroughly debasing to the people. I know what excuses 
and explanations are offered by the pundits. I am sorry 
that they think the common and, tome, degrading worship, 
is fitted to an unenlightened population. I am sorry that 
they do not cherish a loftier faith in the possibilities of the 
common mind. Even granting, which I do not, that idol- 
atry is fitted to national infancy, three thousand years of 
idolatry constitute too long a period of childish enslave- 
ment. Christianity in three hundred years swept away, 
in large measure, the degrading forms of Greek and Roman 



NOTES. 365 

polytheism. I know that there are hundreds of brave- 
hearted reformers in India who are hoping and working 
for the spiritual uplifting of the people, and I wonder that 
hundreds of thousands of educated Hindus do not devote 
themselves to a similar noble task. In western Christen- 
dom it is believed that the lowliest and most ignorant are 
worthy of the best illumination, and the preaching of the 
Gospel to the poor has wrought some of the chief marvels 
of Christian history. We have found that the humblest 
and most ignorant can be brought to worship God (who is 
spirit) 'in spirit and in truth.' Instead of palliating idolatry 
and all its terrible accompaniments in India, the edu- 
cated Hindu, it seems to me, might well strive to 
repeat, with better accompaniments and without any sur- 
render of faith in the great God, the reformatory and ethical 
work which even Buddhism wrought in India more than 
two thousand years ago. 

"Philosophic Hinduism is another thing, and the repre- 
sentatives of it whom I have met are men not only of intel- 
lectual acuteness but often of true devoutness of spirit. I 
should esteem them even more highly than I now do if 
their lives were devoted to lifting the pall of ignorance 
from this poor people, and I am sorry that they are not 
more generally willing to accept and proclaim that Chris- 
tian Gospel which I believe, more firmly if possible than 
ever before, is the only sufficient force for the regeneration 
of the individual and of society." Interview published in 
the Madras Mail. 

Note 3, p. 80. 

Throughout Asia, outside the dominion of Christian and 
Mohammedan thought, faith in metempsychosis is a fun- 
damental and dominating conception, contributing as 
much as any other idea to the vast distinctions separating 
the East from the West. President W. F. Warren, of the 
Boston University, in his baccalaureate address, 1897, "Art 
Thou a Human Being?" elucidates instructively the terri- 
ble significance of the baseless doctrine of transmigration. 

"Here are men by the hundred million who certainly 
know not what it is to be a man ; men bv the hundred mil- 



366 CHRISTIANITY, THE WORLD-RELIGION. 

lion in whose estimation the innocent instinctive love of 
conscious personal life is the supreme error, the supreme 
curse, the only unpardonable sin; men by the hundred 
million who consider themselves and all beings in the 
total cosmic system as already lost, and as already under- 
going aeonian punishment for sin committed in unremem- 
bered earlier lives — a punishment which can never, never 
cease so long as one individual consciousness shall cling 
to life. 

"According to the Buddha and to all advocates of metem- 
psychosis, the Karma which became embodied and per- 
petuated in me the moment I began to be, was nothing 
that belonged to my father or mother, or to any of their 
traceable ancestors — it was something that belonged to a 
wholly different line of beings, the last of whom ceased the 
moment I began my life. 

"In Buddhist thought, and in the thought of all believ- 
ers in successive incarnations in various natures, there 
neither is nor can be any such thing as that which we call 
the human race. By this term we mean the total aggrega- 
tion of genealogically inter-connected human individuals, 
living or dead, born or yet unborn, the whole viewed as 
one in nature, one in origin, one in rational destination. 
Neither the Buddhist, nor the believer in any form of trans- 
migration proper, knows any such vital unity of humanity. 
He cannot. Part of the beings that have been members 
of the human family are now beasts and birds and reptiles 
— not to speak of yet lower or higher beings of non-human 
varieties. A short time ago, all that to-day are men were 
other than human, and a short time hence all will be 
human no longer. Heredity being detached from the line 
of parentage, the family is necessarily different in idea and 
different in manifestation from what it is in the Christian 
lands. In the realm of civil life a naturally ordered and 
conservatively administered state is impossible. A man 
to-day may be a woman to-morrow. Any apparently human 
ruler is liable at any time to lay aside his human form and 
take a year's vacation or a thousand years' vacation among 
the fairylike goddesses, or among the demons, or among 
the beasts of the field. Any subject of the government 



NOTES. 367 

caught in the very act of stealing may turn out to be a 
god commendably engaged in righting some ancient wrong 
that no man ever heard of." 

Note 4, p. 82. 

In partial contrast, however, with the despondency of 
the Hindu Christian mentioned by Prof. Max Miiller, note 
the following observations of the Parsi scholar, Malabari: 

"In spite of pressing engagements I contrived to see a 
good deal of English life, at home and outside, in the 
spheres of politics, literature, science, and the professions, 
as well as of philanthropy; in regard to the domestic rela- 
tions, and as contrasted with life abroad, much of what I 
saw was disappointing, but there was much of it that 
seemed full of hope." Behramji M. Malabari, by G. Gidu- 
mal, p. 238. 

"The life in a decent English home is a life of equality 
among all the members. This means openness and mutual 
confidence. Wife and husband are one at home, however 
different their creed, political or religious. They love, 
trust, serve each other as true partners, each contributing 
his or her share to the common stock of happiness. The 
children stand in the same position with the parents as the 
latter stand to each other. There are no secrets, and there- 
fore no suspicion on the one hand or reserve on the other. 
Mother and daughter live more like sisters; father and son 
more like two brothers. The parent is as slow to assert 
his or her authority as the child is to abuse his or her free- 
dom. The education of the heart begins very early, almost 
while the child is in arms. Then begins the physical edu- 
cation, followed after an interval by education of the 
mind. And how natural is the system of education! how 
pleasant the mode of imparting it! It never wearies or 
cramps the recipient." The Indian Eye on English Life, by 
B. M. Malabari, p. 62. 

"His Christianity strikes one as being a religion mainly 
of flesh, bone and muscle. It teaches him, more than any- 
thing else, how to live, to survive, to make the best of life. 
At home, or abroad, he appears a good deal to be guided 
by this same muscular principle, to aggrandize, to con- 



368 CHRISTIANITY, THE WORLD-RELIGION. 

quer, and to rule. His life, at its best, is a high fever of 
humanity from which the divine has been eliminated, or in 
which, rather, the divine has not yet made a dwelling- 
place. It makes one wonder at such times if the life and 
teachings of Christ —Britain's most precious heritage — may 
not, after all, be thrown away upon a people whose spir- 
itual appreciation is so defective. Are such a people likely 
to attain to anything like a perfect life, making for peace 
and righteousness?" The Indian Eye on English Life, by B. 
M. Malabari, p. 96. 

"On the other hand, one need not be a Christian him- 
self to be able to see that Christianity has tended power- 
fully to humanize one of the least human of the races of 
man. In its essence, it ought to exercise a three-fold 
influence — to humanize, to liberalize, to equalize. This, to 
me, is a very great achievement. Other religions have 
their special merits; but none of them claims to have ren- 
dered this three-fold service to the race." The Indian Eye 
on English Life, by B. M. Malabari, p. 99. 

Prof. Welinkar, of Wilson College, Bombay, has grasped 
firmly and expressed with clearness one of the chief differ- 
ences between English and Hindu education: 

"You cannot by stuffing the student's head with any 
amount of mere book-knowledge, get him to imbibe a gen- 
uine love for the fundamental virtues of the English char- 
acter — its love of truth, its magnanimity, its devotion to 
righteousness. You must get at the spring of these 
traits, discover the moral motive power which sustains the 
best and noblest in the life of England, and you must 
make the youth of India drink of that life-giving stream, 
and thus derive the moral power that alone can urge to 
such lofty action." Liberal Education in India, N. G. Wel- 
inkar, p. 18. 

Note 5, p. 82. 

"Un fils des croises, le prince de Polignac, m'ecrivait 
recemment au sujet de l'lslam. Cette puissante discipline 
des ames ne compte pas un seul rebelle parmi ses adeptes, 
c'est-a-dire pas un athee. . . . Un pareil resultat ne 
peut s'obtenir sans une grandeur intrinseque. Et il ajou- 



NOTES. 369 

tait de vive voix ces paroles hardies, auxquelles je m'as- 
socie: Les Arabes sont plus Chretiens que nous et c'est par 
la porte de l'lslam que nous reviendrons a l'Evangile. 
Nous avons besoin maintenant de cet intermediaire entre 
Jesus et nous." Christianisme et Islamisme. Conferences 
donn/es a Paris dans le mois de Mai, iSgj, par M. Hyacinthe 
Loyson, p. 66. 

Note 6, p. 85. 

On that hard Pagan world disgust 

And secret loathing fell; 
Deep weariness and sated lust 

Made human life a hell. 

The brooding East with awe beheld 

Her impious younger world; 
The Roman tempest swell'd and swell'd 

And on her head was hurl'd. 

The East bow'd low before the blast 

In patient, deep disdain; 
She let the legions thunder past, 

And plunged in thought again. 

So well she mused, a morning broke 

Across her spirit gray; 
A conquering, new-born joy awoke, 

And filled her life with day. 

— Obermann Once More, by Matthew Arnold. 

Note 7, p. 88. 

"We know how the first fellowship of the brethren met; 
how they went forth with words of mercy, love, justice, 
and hope; we know their self-denial, humility, and zeal; 
their heroic lives and awful deaths; their loving natures 
and their noble purposes; how they gathered around them 
wherever they came the purest and greatest; how across 
mountains, seas, and continents the communion of saints 
joined in affectionate trust; how from the deepest corrup- 
tion of the heart arose a yearning for a truer life; how the 
new faith, ennobling the instincts of human nature, raised 



37° CHRISTIANITY, THE WORLD-RELIGION. 

up the slave, the poor, and the humble to the dignity of 
common manhood, and gave new meaning to the true 
nature of womanhood; how, by slow degrees, the church, 
with its rule of right, of morality, and of communion, 
arose; how the first founders and apostles of this faith 
lived and died, and all their gifts were concentrated in 
one, of all the characters of certain history, doubtless the 
loftiest and purest — the unselfish, the great-hearted Paul." 
The Meaning of History, Frederic Harrison, pp. 60-1. 

Note 8, p. 92. 

"There are moments in which we are all Buddhists; 
when life has disappointed us, when weariness is upon us, 
when the keen anguish born of the sight of human suffer- 
ing appals and benumbs us; when we are frozen to terror, 
and our manhood flies at the sight of the Medusa-like head 
of the world's unappeased and unappeasable agony; then 
we too are torn by the paroxysm of anguish;, we would 
flee to the Nirvana of oblivion and unconsciousness, turn, 
ing our backs upon what we cannot alleviate, and longing 
to lay down the burden of life, and to escape from that 
which has become insupportable." EllinwoocT s Oriental Re- 
ligions and Christianity, p. 324. 

But this is only a temporary mood, as Dr. Ellinwood has 
clearly shown, and it is essentially an unchristian spirit. 
Some of the distinctions between Christianity and Buddh- 
ism have been clearly set forth by Prof. George H. Palmer, 
of Harvard University, reported in The Outlook, July, 1897, 
pp. 443-450. 

"Only when desire has altogether passed away can mis- 
ery cease. Is this pessimism? I certainly do not like to use 
that obnoxious word in the presence of my gentle friend (Mr. 
H. Dharmapala). Yet as we reflect how Christianity faces this 
same tremendous problem, there appears a notable con- 
trast in emphasis. Christianity knows of death, knows of 
old age, knows of disease, and is cheerful before them ; 
looks upon them indeed as the very means which may 
assist us in that for which we are here. These are valuable 
forces, it tells us; for in this world we are co-workers with 
God, intrusted with the charge of our own upbuilding, and 



NOTES. 371 

through these very agencies that upbuilding may be accom- 
plished." 

"Horror of individual destruction is a distinctive note 
in Christianity. Each one through consciousness is given 
charge of himself; he is to build himself up into steadfast 
character, into powerful personality. On this Jesus per- 
petually dwells. 

"I find in the teachings of Buddha little provision for 
the great organic institutions of society. The family does 
not naturally spring from such a soil. Of course the fam- 
ily exists under Buddhism. It is tolerated. But, after all, 
the call of the Buddha is always to a monastic life, and 
the thoroughgoing Buddhist is a monk. Monkery is deeply 
planted in the nature of Buddhism. The family, if it 
exists, exists by force of nature, a subordinated institution. 
Woman as woman has no well-grounded dignity. Nor do 
I see any provision in Buddhism for the upbuilding of a 
state. The organic union of man with man in spiritual 
bonds is something on which Buddhism depends, but 
which it does not expressly sanction." Christianity and 
Buddhism, Prof. George H. Palmer. 

Writing of Buddhism in China, the Hon. G. N. Curzon 
says: 

"The Buddhist priests are no amateurs in the art of 
mendicancy. Sometimes large bands of them may be seen 
patroling the streets, and by the discordant clamor of a 
gong calling attention to the unmistakable character of the 
errand which has brought them down into the thorough- 
fares of men. By these different methods they manage to 
scrape along; their buildings and temples just saved from 
dilapidation; their persons and costumes in the last stage 
of seediness and decay; their piety an illusion, their pre- 
tensions a fraud; themselves at once the saviours and the 
outcasts of society, its courted and despised." Problems of 
the Far East, Geo. N. Curzon, M.P., p. 352. 

"The expression of their features is usually one of blank 
and idiotic absorption; which is, perhaps, not surprising, 
considering that of the words which they intone scarcely 
one syllable do they themselves understand. The mass- 
book is a dead letter to them, for it is written in Sanskrit 



37 2 CHRISTIANITY, THE WORLD-RELIGION. 

or Pali, which they can no more decipher than fly. The 
words that they chant are merely the equivalent in sound 
of the ordinary sentences, rendered into Chinese charac- 
ters, and are therefore totally devoid of sense." Problems 
of the Far East, Geo. N. Curzon, M.P., p. 355. 

Note 9, p. 103. 

"The Hindu religion is a reflection of the composite 
character of the Hindus, who are not one people but many. 
It is based on the idea of universal receptivity. It has ever 
aimed at accommodating itself to circumstances, and has 
carried on the process of adaptation through more than 
three thousand years. It has first borne with, and then, so 
to speak, swallowed, digested, and assimilated, something 
from all creeds. Or, like a vast hospitable mansion, it 
has opened its doors to all comers; it has not refused a 
welcome to applicants of every grade from the highest to 
the lowest, if only willing to adopt caste-rules; insomuch 
that many regard Hinduism as a system of social rules 
rather than of religious creeds." Brahmanism and Hindu- 
ism, Sir Monier Williams, p. 57. 

Note 10, p. 103. 

"Why does the Englishman appear two different beings 
— in England all kindness, in India all hauteur? Will the 
following suggestions throw some light on this very seri- 
ous question? When the Englishman met the Hindu in 
England he never realized the depth of the gulf that sep- 
arates the races from each other — the immensity of the 
difference in their ideas and habits. He comes to India, 
and the truth begins to dawn upon him. Idolatry every- 
where; caste everywhere; women immured in the zenana. 
If he be a religious man these things deeply pain him; if 
he be only intellectually a Christian, the sorrow speedily 
turns into contempt — contempt not of the people, but of 
their superstitions. He asks why things so ruinous are 
allowed to endure. He gets no answer, but is told that, 
in addition to the polytheism all around, there exists a 
high philosophy such as is unfolded in the Upanishads or 
Vedanta. Waiving the question of the intrinsic merit of 



notes. 373 

such philosophy, he asks what is its practical value? What 
is it doing to raise India from groveling superstition? The 
answer is 'Nothing' ; true or false, it is a mere speculation. 
He is a practical man, earnest about reform; and from this 
boastful, barren philosophy he turns away in disgust, or, 
at any rate, despair." A Letter to Indian Friends, by Rev. 
J. Murray Mitchell, p. 7. 

Note ii, p. 104. 

"Ye are also forbidden to take to wife free women who 
are married, except those women whom your right hands 
shall possess as slaves. This is ordained you from God. 
Whatever is beside this is allowed you ; that ye may with 
your substance provide wives for yourselves, acting that 
which is right and avoiding whoredom. And for the advan- 
tage which ye receive from them, give them their reward, 
according to that which is ordained; but it shall be 
no crime in you to make any other agreement among your- 
selves, after the ordinance shall be complied with; for God 
is knowing and wise. Whoso among you hath not means 
sufficient that he may marry free women who are believ- 
ers, let him marry with such of your maid-servants whom 
your right hand possesses as are true believers; for God 
well knoweth your faith." The Koran, Chap. IV. 

Note 12, p. 106. 

"The lowest of all is the Pariah outcast, hiding him- 
self from public gaze, a thing conscious of hopeless degra- 
dation, shunning himself, so to say, as much as he is 
shunned by others. O Caste, thou inexorable tyrant, what 
hope is there in India while thy Jugernaut wheel is grind- 
ing man's best nature out of him! Ye missionaries of 
Christ, why don't you save these unhappy tribes from per- 
haps eternal wrong? What a rich harvest of souls to save !" 
Gujarat and the Gujaratis, by B. M. Malabari, p. 186. 



LECTURE III. 

BIBLIOGRAPHY FOR THIRD LECTURE. 

On the general doctrine of God in religion, see: 

d'Alviella Hibbert Lectures, 1891, Origin and Growth of 

the Conception of God. 
James Freeman Clarke, Ten Great Religions, Vol. II. 
C. Loring Brace, The Unknown God. 

On non-Christian Monotheism, see: 

S. H. Kellogg, Genesis and Growth of Religion, Lectures 

7 and 8. 
Ellin wood, Oriental Religions and Christianity, Lecture 7. 

For the Varuna literature, see: 

Monier Williams, Indian Wisdom, p. 13. 
Muir, Sanskrit Texts. 

For the Old Testament Doctrine of God, see: 
Schultz, Old Testament Theology, Vol. II. 

For Hindu Pantheism, see: 

Jacob, A Manual of Hindti Pantheism, Tubner's 
Oriental Series, 1891. 

C. R. Lanman, The Beginnings of Hindu Pantheism. 

On the general subject of theism, see: 
Flint, Theism. 
The same, Anti-Theistic Theories. 

A. C. Fraser, Philosophy of Theism. 

On the special doctrines of the incarnation and redemption, 
see: 

Canon Gore, Lectures on the Incarnation of the Son of God. 

D. W. Simon, The Redemption of Man. 
Fairbairn, The Place of Christ in Modern Theology. 

B. F. Westcott, The Incarnation and Common Life. 

374 



NOTES. 375 

Note i, p. 116. 

"One to whom the boundary line between the Creator 
and His world is perfectly clear, one who knows the eternal 
difference between mind and matter, one born amid the 
trumphs of science, can but faintly realize the mental con- 
dition of the millions of Japan to whom there is no unify- 
ing thought of the Creator-Father." The Religions of Japan, 
Griffis, p. 14. 

Note 2, p. 117. 

Dr. Fairbairn contends that Christ is the creator of 
monotheism in the strict and proper sense of the term. 
"Certain of the prophets of Israel had been monotheists, 
but Judaism was not a monotheism, for a religion that is 
so bound up with a tribe and its polity as to be incapable 
of universal realization, does not really know God as abso- 
lutely supreme." He affirms that monotheism in the strict 
sense means "that alike in idea and reality God is the God 
of all men, open and accessible to all." 

"We may say, then, that, so far as realized religions 
were concerned, we had before Christ polytheisms, pan- 
theisms, henotheisms, but no monotheism. By one and 
the same act He created the conception of one God, one 
religion, and one society; but the first would have been 
inefficient and incomplete if it had not been explicated in 
the second and incorporated in the third. The religion 
explicated the God, for it was ethical in nature as He was 
in character; the society incorporated His ideal, for it was 
universal, as God was one, and filial, as He was father." 
The Place of Christ in Modern Theology, Fairbairn, p. 515. 

In speaking of monotheism as primeval I intend merely 
to convey the idea of its antiquity. It appears in early 
sacred literatures, but back of these there was probably a 
long evolution. The following is Jevons's account of the 
development of the monotheistic idea: 

"The first step toward monotheism is taken when one 
deity is, as not unusually happens, conceived to be supreme 
over all the others, and the rest are but his vassals, his 
ministers or angels. This is due to the transference of the 
relations which obtain in human society to the community 



376 CHRISTIANITT, THE WORLD-RELIGION. 

of the gods; they, like men, are supposed to have a king 
over them. The next step is the result of the constant 
tendency of the ancients to identify one god with another: 
Herodotus had no difficulty in recognizing the gods of 
Greece under the names which the Egyptians gave to their 
own deities; Caesar and Tacitus did not hesitate to identify 
the gods of Gaul and Germany with those of Rome. And 
this was the more easy and reasonable because in many 
cases the gods in question were really the deifications of 
some one and the same natural phenomenon — sun, moon, 
etc." Introduction to the History of Religion, F. B. Jevons, 
P- 383- 

Note 3, p. 125. 

"Historical pantheism, the typical, fascinating panthe- 
ism of Spinoza, is in error only through its exclusiveness. 
The conception of one universal substance is true as far as 
it goes, but it is not the whole truth. The strand of differ- 
ence runs throughout creation. As without the identity 
there can be no unity, so without the difference there can 
be no variety and no reality in finite existences." The 
Christ of To-day, Gordon, p. 95. 

Note 4, p. 136. 

An interesting and instructive parallel has been drawn 
by Dr. K. S. Macdonald between the Aryan god "Agni" 
and the God of Christian revelation. 

"The descriptions given in the Vedas of the god Agni 
lend themselves wonderfully to a comparison with the Lord 
Jesus Christ alike as God and man, as prophet, priest, and 
king. We do not think that our so using them is unjusti- 
fiable or in any way dishonoring to Christ or injurious to 
the interests of His cause. On the other hand, such com- 
parisons, if wisely made, ought to lead people who profess 
to have respect for the Vedas to a greater appreciation of 
the features or traits which are common to both." Agni, 
the Aryan God, a Parallel, by K. S. Macdonald, M.A., D.D., 
reprinted from The Indian Evangelical Review, January and 
April, 1897, p. 20. 



notes. 377 

"We doubt whether out of all the ideals set before us 
among the so-called three hundred and thirty millions of 
Hindu gods, there can be selected any whose character is 
more satisfactory to Brahmos, Christians, or Mohammed- 
ans, or indeed to nineteenth century ideas generally, than 
the character which the ancient Aryans of India gave to 
Agni — a character largely preserved among Hindus to the 
present day in their daily worship among all the vicissi- 
tudes and changes which Hindus underwent during the last 
three thousand years — the more remarkable as he is but 
seldom worshiped by or through a man-made image, as 
almost all the other gods are." Ibid, p. 6. 

"We have also removed a great deal of rubbish which, 
not only lay in heaps all round about the structure, but was 
piled up in the very rooms inside, and up on the walls, 
inside and outside, disfiguring stone and brick. All this 
we have carted away, and exposed to view the individual 
stones and bricks, some of which are beautiful to behold in 
their naked, unadorned simplicity. But after all what does 
it all amount to? Nothing more than the foundations of 
what promised to be a noble superstructure; but which, 
instead of being finished according to the original plan, 
was turned to ignoble and impure purposes, altogether dis- 
honoring to the Great Architect. In Christianity alone 
does the original plan find its fulfillment." Ibid, p. 21. 

As an illustration of the Hindu habit of deifying every 
fact and force, the following is of interest: 

"Soma itself becomes a god, and a very mighty one; he 
is even the creator and father of the gods; the king of gods 
and men ; all creatures are in his hand. It is surely extra- 
ordinary that the Aryas could apply such hyperbolical laud- 
ations to the liquor which they had made to trickle into 
the vat, and which they knew to be the juice of a plant 
they had cut down on the mountains and pounded in a 
mortar; and that intoxication should be confounded with 
inspiration. Yet of such aberrations we know the human 
mind is perfectly capable." The Non-Christian Religions of 
the World — The Hindu Religion, J. Murray Mitchell, p. io. 



37 8 CHRISTIANITY, THE WORLD-RELIGION. 
Note 5, p. 140. 

"The idea of sacrifice is inherent in human nature, and 
ought to have been retained, cherished, purified, and 
realized: though, when the conception of deity becomes 
impersonal, as it does in the Upanishads, there is no 
Supreme Being to whom sacrifices, even of the heart and 
life, can be offered. That the idea was true and necessary, 
is shown by the fact that the sacrificial system — suppressed 
during the period of the Upanishads — broke out again 
afterwards in still greater and more manifold activity in 
the popular sectarian cults of Vaishnavites and Saivites; 
and material sacrifices, offered to these and to other deities, 
have continued, in one form or another, down to the pres- 
ent day, and must continue, in this and other non-Chris- 
tian lands, till Christ, the great Fulfiller of Sacrifices, is 
understood." Studies in The Upanishads, T. E. Slater, p. 13. 

Note 6, p. 141. 

"Brahmanism, again, knows evil, but as metaphysical, 
rather than moral, man's being in a system of illusion, 
divided by ignorance from his rest in the Brahma who is 
the only universal reality. Buddhism, which has of all 
religions the most overmastering sense of misery, has also 
the least sense of sin." The Place of Christ in Modern The- 
ology, Fairbairn, p. 454. 

"The suffering and hardened and indifferent world waits 
for a broken heart in the presence of the eternal pity in 
Christ. The primary want is the dissolving of the soul in 
the sea of regret and grief over the beauty of the Lord made 
real in the Master. The moral idea will never rise upon 
these multitudes until it rises out of this sea of penitential 
feeling, like the sun out of a troubled ocean. Nothing but 
the fires of such sorrow and love can melt the chains of 
evil habit, consume the force of earthly inclinations, and 
burn up utterly the vast psychic accumulation of a soul 
alienated from the true order and divine law of its life. 
Passion led astray, and passion must recover to righteous- 
ness. Only the fury of love can avail for those within the 
prison of moral despair." The Christ of To-day, Gordon, 
p. 278. 



notes. 379 

Note 7, p. 143. 

"Even when, over-constrained by the testimony of con- 
science, the Hindu will speak as if moral good and evil 
were to be rewarded and punished by a personal God, still 
that doctrine of Karma remains, and is no less fatal to the 
idea of responsibility. For if I am not free; if all my 
actions are determined by a law of physical necessity 
entirely beyond my control, — then assuredly I am not 
responsible for them. Let it be observed again that these 
are not merely logical consequences attached to the system 
by an antagonist which the people will refuse to admit. 
The Hindus themselves, both in their authoritative books 
and in their common talk, argue that very conclusion. In 
the Puranas again and again those guilty of the most flagi- 
tious crimes are comforted by Krishna, for example, on this 
express ground, that whereas all was fixed by their Karma, 
and man therefore has no power over that which is to be, 
therefore in the crime they were guilty of no fault. And 
so among the people one wearies of hearing the constant 
excuse for almost everything which ought not to be, 'What 
can we do? It was our Karma! ' " Dr. Kellogg, quoted in 
Selections from the Upanishads, pp. 93-4. 

Note 8, p. 149. 

"The Christian doctrine imputes punishable guilt only 
so far as each one's free choice makes the sin his own ; the 
dying infant who has no choice is saved by grace ; but upon 
every Buddhist, however short-lived, there rests an heir- 
loom of destiny which countless transmigrations cannot 
discharge." Ellinwood's Oriental Religions atid Christianity, 
p. 328. 

Note 9, p. 149. 

"A state in which the knowing and the known are one, 
in which subject and object are identified, implies, as Sir 
William Hamilton, Mansel, and Herbert Spencer have 
alike shown, the annihilation of both; and hence our very 
personality, the existence of which is to each person a fact 
beyond all others the most certain, is yet a thing which 
truly cannot be known at all; for the object perceived is 



380 CHRISTIANITY, THE WORLD-RELIGION. 

itself the perceiving object." Studies in the Upanishad, T. 
E. Slater, p. 22. 

"This kind of pantheism, however, reaches the unity of 
the finite with the infinite solely by denying the reality of 
the former. It reconciles man with God simply by the 
negation of all that makes him man. But such a nega- 
tive deliverance is, as we have already seen, no real eman- 
cipation. If it brings rest to the weary, it is but the rest of 
the grave. Nay, as the Buddhist recognizes, with the 
absolute negation of the finite, the infinite, also, which is 
known only in its relation to it, is deprived of all meaning. 
Its God ceases to be a living God, just because He has 
absorbed all life unto Himself." The Evohition of Religion, 
Edward Caird, Vol. II, p. 149. 

Note 10, p. 152. 

See Pressense's Ancient World and Christianity, p. 469. 
The expectant attitude of the pagan world at the coming 
of Christ is well described in Chapter II of Book V. In 
regard to Virgil's prophecies in the fourth Eclogue of a gol- 
den age to come when the earth shall be delivered from 
sorrow, Pressense says: 

"It was especially in this aspect that Virgil was the 
inspired voice of his generation. Victor Hugo has well 
expressed in the following lines the mysterious expectancy 
which filled the air at this period: 

" 'Le vers porte a sa eime une lueur etrange 
C'est qu'a son insu meme il est une des ames 
Que l'Orient lointain teignait de vagues fiammes, 
C'est qu'il est un des coeurs que deja, sous les cieux 
Dorait le jour naissant du Christ mysterieux.' " 

"It is easy to understand how Virgil came to be Chris- 
tianized in early legend. His feast was kept in the Middle 
Ages as one of the prophets of Christ. St. Paul was sup- 
posed to have visited his tomb in Naples, and to have 
lamented over it thus: 'Oh greatest of poets, what had I 
not made of thee, had I but met thee in thy lifetime?' 

"We conclude with M. Boissier that Virgil was one of 
those who prepared the way for the triumph of Christian- 



NOTES. 381 

ity without knowing it, and with M. Duruy we say, that 
like a new Columbus he pointed, through the mists of the 
West, to the new world which was to come forth from them. 
Dante gave a perfectly true picture of Virgil when he 
likened him to a man going out into the night and carry- 
ing behind him a torch of which he makes no use, but 
which lightens the path of those who come after. 

"Every impartial historian recognizes from his own point 
of view the attitude of expectancy in which souls were 
standing at this time. 'Every man,' says Lucretius, 'is 
groping after the way of life.' It seems strange to find 
this great Epicurean poet thus anticipating the words after- 
ward spoken by Paul at Athens." The Ancient World and 
Christianity, E. De Pressense, D.D., pp. 558-559. 



LECTURE IV. 

BIBLIOGRAPHY FOR THE FOURTH LECTURE. 

On the general subject of the Bible and Biblical study, see: 
Moulton, The Literary Study of the Bible. 
C. A. Briggs, Biblical Study. 

Bartlett and Peters, Scriptures, Hebrew and Christian. 
Ladd, What is the Bible ? 
Gladden, Who Wrote the Bible ? 
Zenos, The Elements of the Higher Criticism. 
Lias, Principles of Biblical Criticism. 
Westcott, The History of the English Bible. 

On the other sacred books of the world, see: 

The Book of the Dead. Translation by Renouf. 

For the Akkadian Hymns, see translations (to be used with 
great caution) in Sayce, Hibbert Lectures on the Religion of 
the Ancient Babylonians. 

For the A vesta, see translation in the Sacred Books of the 
East (S. B. E.)Vo\s. IV, XXIII and XXXI, and the revolu- 
tionary work on the Avesta, by the late Professor Darm- 
steter. 

For the Kojiki, see Chamberlain's translation in Proceedings 
of the Asiatic Society of Japan; supplement to Volume X. 

For the sacred books of China, see the translations in 
S. B. E., Vols. Ill, XVI, XXVII and XXVIII (Confucian) 
and XXXIX and XL (Taoism). 

For the Vedas, see translations of the Rig and Atharva by 
R. T. H. Griffith. Portions of the Rig Veda have been 
translated in S. B. E., Vols. XXXII and XLVIII, and the 
Atharva Veda in a volume of S. B. E. just issued, 
382 



NOTES. 383 

For the Brahmanas, see the translation of the Satapatha 

Brahmana, S B. £., XII, XXVI, XLI. 
For the Puranas, see the translation of the Vishnu Purana 

by Wilson, and of the Bhagavata Purana by Burnouf. 
For the Upanishads, see the translation in S. B. £., Vols. I 

and XV. 

T. E. Slater, Studies in the Upanishads. 
For the Buddhist texts, see translations in S. B. E. — (1) 

Vinaya, Vols. XIII, XVII, XX; (2) Dhammapada, Vol. X; 

(3) Selected Suttas, Vol. XL 
For the Koran, see the well-known translation by Sale, the 

commentary by Wherry, four volumes, and the transla- 
tion by Palmer, in S. B. P., VI and XIX. 
For the Sikh Bible, see the translation by E. Trumpp, called 

The Adi-Granth; or, The Holy Scriptures of the Sikhs, 1877. 

Note i, p. 179. 

For instructive examples of the noble elements which are 
found in non-Christian literature, read the collection of 
prayers, Egyptian, Akkadian, Babylonian, Vedic, Avestic, 
Chinese, Mohammedan, and Modern Hindu which Prof. 
Max Miiller has brought together in his volume of Gifford 
Lectures, 1892, Theosophy or Psychological Religion, pp. 13-22. 

See also Hymn xcvii, Rig Veda, Book I: 

1. Chasing with light our sin away, O Agni, shine thou 

wealth on us. 
May his light chase our sin away. 

2. For goodly fields, for pleasant homes, for wealth, we 

sacrifice to thee. 
May his light chase our sin away. 

3. Best praiser of all these be he; foremost of our chiefs 

who sacrifice. 
May his light chase our sin away. 

4. So that thy worshipers and we, thine, Agni, in our 

sons may live. 
May his light chase our sin away. 

5. As ever-conquering Agni's beams of splendor go to 

every side, 
May his light chase our sin away. 



384 CHRISTIANITY, THE WORLD-RELIGION. 

6. To every side thy face is turned, thou art triumphant 

everywhere. 
May his light chase our sin away. 

7. O thou whose face looks every way, bear off our foes as 

in a ship. 
May his light chase our sin away. 

8. As in a ship, convey us for our advantage o'er the 

flood. 
May his light chase our sin away. 

Note 2, p. 182. 

"How has it come to pass that the fates of the Upani- 
shads and of the Bible, their influence on the world, have 
been so different? How different their nature and their 
scope. The Bible covers the course of the world from the 
creation to the final restitution of all things; it is imbed- 
ded in, and asscoiated with, the past history of the race; it 
deals with all the problems of practical life; it is addressed 
to all men, and concerns all men — the Book for the millions. 

"If the ancient Indian ideal of spirituality was so lofty, 
why was it not retained; and why did it not save the 
country from degenerating? If but one human being had 
really become God here on earth, this planet of ours ought 
long ago to have been transformed into a very different 
world. But, instead of that, why has India become the 
most illiterate land; and the land that, according to the 
late Sir Madhava Rao, has suffered more from self-created 
social evils than any other community? Is the present state 
of Hindu society and the present moral exhaustion the 
legitimate development or the accidental outcome of the 
ancient philosophy of the universe? Pantheistic thought 
has always exercised a paralyzing influence on all moral 
and human life. Most vital is the connection between the 
highest religious thought and the moral and social life of a 
people. And what have all the philosophies and sciences 
of the world done for the regeneration and progress of 
mankind compared with the one truth — 'God is love?' " 
Studies in the Upanishads, T. E. Slater, p. 73. 

"Institutions not only grow but decay also, and decay as 
well as growth is a process of evolution. Florid art is 



NOTES. 385 

evolved out of something simpler, but it is not therefore 
superior to it. The Roman Empire was evolved out of the 
Roman Republic, and was morally a degeneration from it. 
The polytheism of Virgil is not better, as religion, than 
that of Homer; the polytheism of the late Brahmanism is 
certainly worse than that of the earlier periods. There- 
fore to say that the only evolution in religion — except 
that which is on the lines of the Bible — is an evolu- 
tion of error, may be quite true and yet not show that the 
idea of evolution is applicable to heathen religions. Their 
evolution may well have been, from the religious point of 
view, one long process of degeneration. Progress is cer- 
tainly as exceptional in religion as in other things, and 
where it takes place must be due to exceptional causes." 
Introduction to the History of Religion, F. B. Jevons, p. 5. 

Note 3, p. 188. 

"But no other history and no human experience is so 
clear a proof of the practical curse to a people which lies in 
a false philosophy and imperfect religion as the confused 
records of Hindu thought afford. The combination of pan- 
theism and idolatry seems to be the worst possible spiritual 
atmosphere for a people. The belief in re-birth, previous 
existence, and future transmigration became almost 
stamped congenitally upon the Hindu mind. It over- 
shadowed existence from the earliest moment with the 
deepest darkness. The devout and thoughtful worshiper 
saw no escape from it, except after millions of aeons in the 
absolute cessation of personal existence by absorption in 
God. Pain and suffering and sin were the necessary 
accompaniments of conscious life through all possible 
existences till the soul entered into the Infinite Spirit." 
The Unknown God, C. Loring Brace, p. 222. 

Note 4, p. 188. 

"The early Hindus did not find any difficulty in reconcil- 
ing the most different and sometimes contradictory opin- 
ions in their search after truth; and a most extraordinary 
medley of oracular sayings might be collected from the 
Upanishads, even from those which are genuine and com- 



386 CHRISTIANITY, THE WORLD-RELIGION. 

paratively ancient, all tending to elucidate the darkest 
points of philosophy and religion, the creation of the 
world, the nature of God, the relation of man to God, and 
similar subjects. That one statement should be contra- 
dicted by another seems never to have been felt as any 
serious difficulty." Ancient Sanskrit Literature, Max Miil- 
ler, pp. 320-21. 

Note 5, p. 189. 

"What could you expect from a nation whose mothers 
have to live in perpetual infancy? — married in the early 
teens, often to become widows before they are out of their 
teens. Can these be the mothers of heroes and patriots, 
and statesmen? The women of India have really no exist- 
ence, as apart from the men. Their life is one of dire 
dependence. And as are the women, so, naturally, must 
be the men — dependent upon others for almost everything 
in life, without a career and without the resources for 
working out their own destiny. They have nearly lost the 
power of initiative for purposes of self-improvement." The 
Indian Problem, B. M. Malabari, p. 42. 

"Now let us first try these tests on existing heathen- 
ism. The old Vedic religion, so much talked about by 
philologists, is dead and gone, and so, too, are the 
gods it worshiped. And the glamor that used to 
daze simple occidentals when the Vedas and Upanishads 
existed untranslated in archaic Sanskrit, has vanished now 
that you may read them for yourself in plain English." 
Hinduism and Christianity, Rev. Geo. T. Washburn, D.D., p. 7. 

"In regard to women, the general feeling is that they 
are the necessary machines for producing children (Manu 
ix, 96); and without children there can be no due perform- 
ance of the funeral rites essential to the peace of a man's 
soul after death. This is secured by early marriages. If 
the law required the consent of boys and girls before the 
marriage ceremony, they might decline to give it. Hence 
girls are betrothed at three or four years of age, and go 
through the ceremony of marriage at seven to boys of 
whom they know nothing, and if these boy-husbands die 



NOTES. 387 

they remain virgin-widows all their lives." Brahmanism 
and Hinduism, Sir Monier Williams, p. 387. 

"The Indian home, instead of aiding the work of schools 
and colleges, in a large number of cases positively retards 
it. It is not merely the general ignorance prevailing in 
Indian homes that makes them bear so unfavorably on 
Western culture, in its best sense, but the positive beliefs 
and practices which obtain there — and which, in their spirit 
are totally antagonistic to the new views which English 
education inculcates regarding life and duty. The Indian 
home is a scene of superstitious beliefs and practices, in 
which the high school and college student has lost all faith, 
and which he has even learnt to despise. Yet he quietly 
puts up with these and even seems to countenance them 
because his new light has supplied him with nothing which 
he can put in the place of them, nor has it worked on him 
with such force as to create an abhorrence for things which 
he considers to be wrong." Liberal Education in India, by 
N. G. Welinkar, p. 10. 

"It is true that, theoretically, they are ignored as sep- 
arate units in society. It is true that they abstain from 
pronouncing their husband's name, calling him simply 
'lord,' or 'master,' or 'the chosen' (vara); and they them- 
selves are never directly alluded to by their husbands in 
conversation. It is true that for a male friend to mention 
their names or even inquire after their health would be a 
breach of etiquette. It is true, too, that their life is spent 
in petty household duties, in superintending the family 
cuisine, in a wearisome round of. trivial acts. It is even 
true that in religion they are theoretically placed on the 
same level as Sudras. They are allowed no formal initia- 
tion into the Hindu faith, no investiture with the sacred 
thread, no spiritual second birth. Marriage is to them 
the end and aim of life, and the only medium of regenera- 
tion. No other purificatory rite is permitted to them. 
They never read, repeat, or listen to the Veda. Yet, for 
all that, the women of India are the mainstay of Hindu- 
ism. They are its principal stronghold and fortress. 
Without their support both Brahmanism and Hinduism 



388 CHRISTIANITY, THE WORLD-RELIGION. 

would rapidly collapse." Brahmanism and Hinduism, Sir 
Monier Williams, p. 388. 

"Therefore we say that the Hindu code as a whole is 
savage and antique, and that, excluding religious excess 
and debauchery, it is on a par with the modern ethical code 
only nominally." Religions of India, Hopkins, p. 555. 

Note 6, p. 196. 

"It is to the British government that we owe our deliv- 
erance from oppression and misrule, from darkness and 
distress, from ignorance and superstition. Those enlight- 
ened ideas which have changed the very life of the nation, 
and have gradually brought about such wondrous improve- 
ment in native society, are the gifts of that government; 
and so likewise the inestimable boon of freedom of thought 
and action, which we so justly prize." Lectures in India, 
Keshub Chunder Sen, p. 15. 



LECTURE V. 
BIBLIOGRAPHY FOR THE FIFTH LECTURE. 

The leading works on the life of Jesus may be enumerated 
as follows: 

Andrews, Life of Our Lord. 

Weiss, The Life of Christ, 3 volumes (T. & T. Clarke, 
Edinburgh). 

Edersheim, Life and Times of Jesus, the Messiah. 

Beyschlag, Das Leben Jesu. 

Pressense, Jesus Christ, His Life, Times, and Work. 

Didon, The Life of Jesus, 2 volumes. (The best Roman 
Catholic life.) 

Keim, History of Jesus of Nasara. 

Here also may be mentioned Fairbairn's The Place of 
Christ in Modern Theology. 

Phillips Brooks, The Lnfluence of Jesus. 

George Dana Boardman, Christ, the Unifier of Human- 
ity, in History of Parliament of Religions. 

For the lives of the other great founders of religions, see: 
For Buddha: 

Rhys David's Buddhism, S. P. C. K., and Hibbert Lec- 
tures. 
Oldenberg, Buddha (translated from the German). 

For Confucius: 

Legge, Life and Teachings of Confucius. 

The same, Religions of China. 

R. K. Douglas, Confucianism, S. P. C. K. 

For Zoroaster 

The Encyclopaedia Britannica article on Zoroaster. 



389 



39° CHRISTIANITY, THE WORLD-RELIGION. 

For Mohammed: 

Sir William Muir, The Life of Mahomet, 4 volumes 

(hostile, though judicial). 
Syed Ameer Ali, Life and Teachings of Mohammed 
(written by a believer). 
For Socrates: 

Plato' s Apology and Crito. 

Stanley's Lecture on Socrates in the third series of his 

Jewish Church. 
Wenley, Socrates and Christ. 

Note i, p. 209. 

"It seems that the Christ that has come to us is an 
Englishman, with English manners and customs about him, 
and with the temper and spirit of an Englishman in him. 
Hence it is that the Hindu people shrink back and say: 
Who is this revolutionary reformer who is trying to sap 
the very foundations of native society and establish here 
an outlandish faith and civilization quite incompatible with 
oriental instincts and ideas?" Lectures in India, Keshub 
Chunder Sen, p. 282. 

"To us Asiatics, therefore, Christ is doubly interesting, 
and his religion is entitled to our peculiar regard as an 
altogether Oriental affair. The more this great fact is 
pondered, the less I hope will be the antipathy and hatred 
of European Christians against Oriental nationalities, and 
the greater the interest of the Asiatics in the teachings of 
Christ. And thus in Christ, Europe and Asia, the East and 
the West, may learn to find harmony and unity." Lectures 
in India, Keshub Chunder Sen, p. 26. 

"Saint, Son of God, Elder Brother, it is impossible to 
honor and love Thee too much. I have sometimes failed 
to give Thee Thy due; but alas! I find it too true on the 
other hand that, in obeying and honoring Thee, men put 
the spirit of God in the background altogether. I would 
rather be true to God than to man, though I know God is 
in man, and honor to man is one of the highest virtues. O 
teach me Thy true worship, my God, so that my highest 
love and honor to Thee will be the highest love and honor 
to Thy Son." Heart-Beats, Mozoomdar, p. 171. 



NOTES. 391 

"Strength was natural to Thee, Son of God, as to the 
young lion — strength to suffer and to act. Thy words 
were as mighty as Thy silence. I trust in Thee to bear me 
in Thy strong arms, as the shepherd bears his weakling 
lamb. Cover me in Thy garment of protecting faith, and 
change Thou me into Thy very self." Heart-Beats, Mo- 
zoomdar, p. 129. 

Note 2, p. 214. 

"With regard to animal life, I know that it is often 
claimed that Buddha was more compassionate than Jesus. 
I think he was less discriminating. Jesus had a tender 
regard for all animal life, and taught that even the spar- 
rows were the subjects of his Father's care; but never- 
theless he believed that men were in God's sight of 'more 
value than many sparrows.' He rebuked the stiff conserv- 
atism of the Pharisees, which would have forbidden the 
finding of a lost sheep on the Sabbath, or the rescuing of a 
dumb beast from suffering. Buddhism is perhaps much 
more particular in avoiding the destruction of insect life 
than Christianity, but on that score I think Buddhism has 
yet to reckon with the modern science of bacteriology, and 
the question whether the living germs of disease shall 
destroy or be destroyed, and whether it is less merciful 
on the whole that animals and fishes shall be food for 
each other and for man than that myriads of living 
microbes shall destroy them by the slow torture of disease. 
Life and death are shown by science to be so balanced that 
in the total of existence death is as beneficent as life. The 
economy of the sea is one of constant carnage, and so also 
with the earth; but for this the sea would soon become a 
solid mass of suffering, living forms, and the earth would 
be uninhabitable by men. Christian precept is humane, 
but it is discriminating. It would destroy the wolves and 
serpents of India rather than allow them every year to 
destroy thousands of the people, and it would allow the 
Esquimaux to feed on fish rather than suffer the extinction 
of their race." The Open Court, F. F. Ellin wood, p. 56, of 
January, 1897. 

"If, therefore, it be asked whether the Christian idea of 



39 2 CHRISTIANITY, THE WORLD-RELIGION. 

charity is a higher thing than the Buddhist conception of 
a sympathy which passes over every barrier of caste and 
race and circumstance, and which in its universality em- 
braces all men and even all animals, there is a ready 
answer. Buddhism, like the abstract pantheism it opposes, 
has no distinguishing respect for the spiritual nature of 
man. It is a leveling doctrine which meets the indiscrim- 
inate 'Whatever is is right,' of Brahmanism, with an 
equally indiscriminate 'Whatever is is wrong.' It cannot 
set the qualities that make a man above those that make a 
beast. And if its love extends to all men, and, we may 
even say, to all living beings, it is not that it regards them 
as having any real value in their individual existence, but 
that it looks upon them as all equally sufferers from the 
misery of existence. Hence it might be said that the uni- 
versal charity of the Buddhist was only his second highest 
virtue ; and that it held even so high a place as this only 
because such charity is the negation of all special regard 
for individual things." The Evolution of Religion, Edward 
Caird, p. 365. 

Note 3, p. 228. 

"How can there be any comparison between Christ and 
any other man? His personal goodness and faith alone 
would confer supreme eminence on him. When to that is 
added the strange element of unexampled suffering and 
neglect, such as would have crushed any other man's soul, 
does he not become unique? But that suffering, instead of 
producing bitterness, was an endless source of love and 
sympathy for others, who never felt for him. Nay, more, 
the suffering takes the dignity of death. If death had 
ended all, Christ would have been one of the greatest 
names in history. But he rose from death, and the world 
to-day bears the teeming evidence that Christ lives. The 
dead become alive when they trust in His name; the living 
become more alive when they love Him. All goodness, 
sweetness, wisdom, are crowned with the meek dignity of 
the Son of Man. All sorrow, sin, suffering, are purified 
in His spirit. Where is such another on earth?" Heart- 
Beats, Mozoomdar, p. 13. 



notes. 393 

Note 4, p. 238. 

"Mr. M. B. Malabari, in his recent tours, has had very 
painful experiences of the strong and active antagonism 
that exists between the Hindus and the Mohammedans. 
Writing to the The hidian Spectator of a recent date, Mr. 
Malabari says: 'At Fatehpur and other places I heard the 
Hindus reviling the Mohammedans; here, at Jhansi, I find 
the Mohammedans execrating and incriminating the 
Hindus. So here we are, dreaming of national unity, but 
rent asunder, in real life, by interracial dissensions ; 
dreaming of universal peace when strife and struggle dog 
us at every step; dreaming of a common cause against 
foreigners, but kept by the same foreigners from cutting one 
another's throats! Wide, very wide is the gulf between 
the dream and the reality. And, upon my honor, the gulf 
is widening more and more in some respects.' " The 
Queen, of Calcutta, June 28, 1897, p. 4. 



LECTURE VI. 

BIBLIOGRAPHY FOR THE SIXTH LECTURE. 

On the history of Christianity, the best books are: 
Schaff, History of Christianity, 6 volumes. 
Fisher, History of the Christian Church. (A manual his- 
tory.) 
Moeller, History of the Christian Church, 2 volumes. 

For the early history of Christianity, see: 

Pressense, Early Years of Christianity, 4 volumes. 

For Christianity and the Supernatural, see: 

Fisher, The Supernatural Origin of Christianity. 

For Christianity and Miracles, see: 

Bruce, The Miraculous Element in the Gospels. 

For Christianity and Science, see: 

A. J. Balfour, The Foundations of Belief . 
A. D. White, A History of the Warfare of Science with 
Theology. 

For Revelation and Inspiration, see: 

Ewald, Revelation, Its Nature a?id Record. 

Bruce, The Chief End of Revelation. 

Sanday, Inspiration, Bampton Lectures; 1893. 

Horton, Inspiration and the Bible. 

The same, Revelation and the Bible. 
For Christianity and History, see: 

Fairbairn, The City of God. 

Sell, The Church in the Mirror of History. 

Dale, The Living Christ and the Four Gospels. 
On the general subject of the Lecture, see: 

Bruce, Apologetics. 

Fisher, The Grounds of Theistic and Christian Belief. 

394 



notes. 395 

Note i, p. 251. 

See Robertson Smith's Prophets of Israel, pp. 1-7. 

Note 2, p. 253. 

"But religion in India is dead or decaying in the ranks 
where it is most potent for a widefelt constructive influ- 
ence." The Indian Eye on English life, by B M. Mala- 
bari, p. 125. 

"The best among the Greek philosophers confessed 
their need of some new power to give practical effect to 
their theories; and who can say that the life of Greece was 
not greatly deteriorated in the second and third centuries 
of our era from what it had been in the days of Aristotle 
and Demosthenes? The ironical strength of Socrates had 
no redeeming force. The beautiful life of Marcus Aurelius 
gives the impression of resignation, not of hope. The excel- 
lent maxims of Confucius at most bound fast the life of 
China in an iron law. Buddhism gave peace, but it was, 
at least as to the social and political life, the peace of 
resigned despair. Mohammed's grand iconoclasm spent 
itself almost in its first onset, and has failed to exhibit 
any new principle of vitality. But the cross of Christ is 
new in every age, and has changed the face of the world, 
and has been the spring of civilization and of an untiring 
progress." The World as the Subject of Redemption, W. H. 
Fremantle, p. 26. 

Note 3, p. 266. 

"There is, to use a phrase of grammar, a proleptic, or 
anticipatory, Christianity, of which we may see traces deep 
down in the convictions of the various races of men. It 
shows itself partially and fitfully in their religions, but 
more in their philosophies, their family life, and their laws. 
In these God has always had a witness among them. 
Christ came in the fulness of time. The ground was laid 
on all sides in preparation for Him; the human race was 
growing towards Him ; so that we must look at the whole 
human development as one, and on Christian spirit as the 
root of all that is good and true in it, and on Christ Him- 



39 6 CHRISTIANITY, THE WORLD-RELIGION. 

self as its crown." The World as the Subject of Redemption, 
W. H. Fremantle, p. 250. 

Note 4, p. 266. 

By miracles we mean works of ever-continuing wonder, 
worthy of the Divine character, the results of the exercise 
of God's power, put forth not in the order of the usual 
course of Nature, for the purpose of attesting a Divine rev- 
elation. This, of course, excludes all wonders which the 
progress of science may explain, and all the lying won- 
ders of evil magicians and necromancers. It lifts the 
miracle to its proper place as a Divine act performed for 
the highest ends. Now Jesus Christ appealed to such 
miracles as among the evidences of His supernatural com- 
mission. "That ye may know that the Son of Man hath 
power on earth to forgive sins (then saith he to the sick 
of the palsy), 'Arise, take up thy bed and go unto thine 
house.'" What does a miracle show? What do these 
events, wrought by the direct interposition of Divine power, 
indicate? They prove not only the truth of the message, 
but the Divine authority of the messenger. It is the 
authority which miracles give to the Gospels which appears 
offensive to some men. The effort to-day is not to deny 
the moral truth of the Scriptures, but to put the Gospels 
on the same level with the ethical writings of Socrates and 
Seneca, of George Fox and Swedenborg. Now I believe 
that it is a Christian duty to welcome truth from any 
quarter, and to cherish humane thoughts towards all relig- 
ions, so far as they are true; but if God has interposed, 
out of love toward man, and set the seal of miracle on cer- 
tain Scriptures which we call the Gospels, then there 
belong to them a dignity, an inspiration and an authority 
setting them apart from and above all other writings. 
John Foster has called a miracle "the ringing of the great 
bell of the universe, summoning the multitudes to hear 
the sermon." And as Moses in the wilderness, when he 
saw the burning bush which was not consumed, turned 
aside, and then heard the voice of the Lord from the midst 
of the flaming shrub, so miracles have been the burning 
bush, drawing men aside, both to hear this Divine word, 



notes. 397 

and to receive it as of Divine authority. Over such Scrip- 
tures flames an awful "light which never was on sea or 
land," a light above that of the sun, because it comes 
directly from the highest heaven, and the voice which 
speaks to us can be no other than the voice of God. And 
though we may stand with bowed and uncovered heads 
before the great sages and singers of humanity, yet when 
we come before this Book, we may well heed the word 
which says, "Put off thy shoes from off thy feet for the place 
whereon thou standest is holy ground." 

I believe that the miracles, however, are far more than 
the bell calling us to hear the sermon: they are themselves 
a heavenly part of the divine discourse, giving us a dis- 
closure of God as helpful and blessed as any which shines 
from the Scriptures. And, besides all else, the miracles 
clinch our faith at points where it is weakest; they set the 
seal of Heaven on the title-deeds of our salvation. I can- 
not think that any other document is worthy of such a 
celestial stamp. Were not the miracles there to convince 
the human mind, the wayward heart would often be self- 
deceived into giving up a book that so rebukes its wicked- 
ness. And were it not for the miracles we might distrust 
such glorious promises as are therein made to the believ- 
ers in Christ. It is not so difficult to believe the hard 
things of the Word of God, as to believe the glorious things 
which are spoken to the Christian. When the Bible speaks 
of judgment, it has the power of conscience on its side. 
But when the Bible speaks of mercy to sinners, of forgive- 
ness to rebels, of crowns and scepters, and sonship with 
God, of Heavenly worlds with gates of pearl and streets of 
gold and the River of Life, and joys surpassing all our 
dreams, then it is that we need, most of all, the miracu- 
lous elements of the Gospel to reinvigorate and perpetuate 
our faltering faith. This Book of Books which has entered 
into the highest literature, which has shaped the noblest 
art, which has been the life-blood of civilization, the 
mother of liberty, the enfranchisement of the oppressed, 
the conqueror of barbarism ; this Book which has called 
forth the eulogies of the greatest minds, which has fur- 
nished the subject for the most profound and ennobling 



39 8 CHRISTIANITY, THE WORLD-RELIGION. 

study, which has brought solace to the suffering and hope 
to the dying, and which makes itself at home in all lands, 
amid all nations, in all centuries, is so wonderful that it 
alone appears worthy of such a Heavenly seal as miracles 
have given it. 

Note 5, p. 267. 

If any are determined by a previously formed philoso- 
phy, not to believe in miracles, however attested, even 
though by the Word of Him who claimed to be the Son of 
God, and who in the consciousness of perfect truth and 
holiness appealed to His miracles, they will contrive to 
reject them. But once acknowledge a personal God who 
loves mankind and, as John Stuart Mill has conclusively 
said, all rational objection to miracles disappears. All 
who believe in God believe that a Divine Person has already 
bridged the non-existent and the existent, the non-living 
and the living, the non-intelligent and the intelligent ; so that, 
as Dr. Peabody of Harvard has shown, "Miracles make a 
large part of the history of the material universe." All 
who see a personal God working in and through the phe- 
nomena of the visible and the intellectual world, mani- 
festing His glory in the birth of a star and in the birth of 
a Shakespeare, showing forth His power in the blossoms 
which cover with beauty the sods of springtime, and in the 
galaxies which sprinkle the midnight with sidereal fire, all 
who see a personal God in the annual resurrection of 
Nature, will not deny that such a God can raise the dead. 
Such a denial, as even Rousseau said, "would be impious if 
it were not absurd. It is logical for one who does not 
believe in a personal God to deny the possibility of mir- 
acles. All that Hume makes out in his celebrated essay, 
is, that no amount of evidence can prove a miracle to an 
atheist. And if God is thought to be an impersonal, inde- 
scribable, unknowable abstraction, or if He is regarded 
as a great magician who has retired into the infinite deeps 
of space and left the management of our earthly life to 
dumb, mechanical laws, in the midst of which He Him- 
self can make no sign, then of course we talk in vain, to 
those thinking thus, about miraculous interferences. Such 



NOTES. 399 

a poor and helpless exile as some men hold God to be 
would never have called forth Lazarus from his sepulchre 
or empowered the Christian Apostles to heal the sick. But, 
once acknowledge an omnipresent God, working in and 
through all natural laws, and, as unbelievers themselves 
confess, the objections to miracles vanish. 

There are historic certainties, resting, it is true, for their 
evidence on testimony, but for which the evidence is so 
weighty that doubt is unreasonable. The voyage of 
Columbus, the death of Napoleon Bonaparte at St. Helena, 
these are historic certainties, though they rest on the credi- 
bility of human testimony. Such a complexity of proba- 
bilities encloses the Christian faith that Christ rose from 
the dead, and such a complexity of absurdities and moral 
impossibilities beset the denial of His resurrection, that 
the event must be placed where Greenleaf, the great author- 
ity on legal evidence, places it, in the category of historic 
certainties. When we rise to behold this mighty miracle 
as the crowning revelation of the nature of Jesus, it seems 
altogether befitting that such a nature should receive such 
a diadem. The resurrection belongs to the other parts of 
an unequalled life; it is not an isolated fact. And, as we 
abide in thought with the historic Jesus, as we contem- 
plate the perfection of His goodness, the originality of His 
claims, the matchlessness of His wisdom, and as we hear 
from His sinless lips His sublime words concerning Him- 
self, declaring that He had power to lay down His life and 
power to take it again, it seems that a being of another 
order and from a higher world was manifest in the Man of 
Galilee, and for such a life it seems congruous that there 
should be an end unique and glorious. And when we note 
that Divine hopes of immortality are made to walk the 
earth with assurance beneath them by the resurrection of 
Jesus, when we see in His tomb the Divine purpose, which 
had been dimly disclosed to the men of old, breaking open 
at last to fully reveal man's eternal home in the bosom of 
God, all the prophecies of hope and conscience and love 
verified as the rejoicing Heavenly Bridegroom came out 
of His chamber of death on the Resurrection morning, and 
when we perceive how godless the moral universe would 



400 CHRISTIANITT, THE WORLD-RELICION. 

seem if such a divine life as Christ's had in fact been 
beaten down into hopeless defeat by the Crucifixion, then 
all the overwhelming and invincible testimony that Jesus 
did rise again appears to be testimony to what is in accord 
with the higher order of the world, while the great miracle 
itself is explained by its divine purpose that eternal life 
should be disclosed to men, and that Christ, our redeem- 
ing King, who died for us on the Cross, "should be 
declared the Son of God with power by the Resurrection 
from the dead." 

The third day after the crucifixion of Jesus, the world 
began to be transformed. A company of humble men 
rose out of despair into ecstacy, out of weakness into 
unequalled spiritual power. The first day of the week 
began to be as sacred to them as the ancient Sabbath of 
Jehovah. Obstinate and almost ineradicable Jewish preju- 
dices were uprooted, and a divine and world-wide philan- 
thropy was planted in their hearts. When fifty days had 
passed there came into their souls such heavenly power 
that they filled a vast number from every nation with their 
faith and their love. A new City of God rose out of the 
empire of the Caesars; the conversion of a hostile and 
wicked world is nothing less than a Divine testimony to 
the supreme fact on which the Church was builded; and 
having reached this point, it would seem that the evidence 
of the truth of this event could scarcely be made stronger 
by the device of man, or, I say it reverently, by the wis- 
dom of God Himself. At least we are willing to say with 
that relentless and destructive German critic, Evvald, "That 
nothing stands more historically certain than that Jesus 
rose from the dead and appeared again to His followers, 
and that their seeing Him again was the beginning of a 
higher faith and of all their Christian work in the world." 



LECTURE VII. 

BIBLIOGRAPHY FOR SEVENTH LECTURE. 

The Official History of the World's Parliament of Religions, 2 

volumes, Hill & Shuman, Chicago. 
Le Congres des Religions, G. Bonet-Maury, Paris. 
Die Welt-Religionen auf dent Columbia-Congress von Chicago, 

Prof. Wilhelm von Zehender, Miinchen. 
77 Parlamenta delle Religioni e V Irenica Inter con fessionale, 

Emilio Comba, Rome. 
La Loi du Progres dans les Religions, Goblet d'Alviella, Brus- 
sels. 
The Chorus of Faith, Jenkin Lloyd Jones. 
Le Parlement des Religions, Revue de I 'Histoire des Religions, 

September and October, 1893. 
Review of the World's Religious Congresses, Chicago and New 

York, 1893, L. P. Mercer. 

See also: , 

C. H. Toy, The New World, December, 1893. 
Paul Carus, The Forum, June, 1894. 

C. C. Bonney, The New Church Review, January, 1894. 
George William Knox, The Church at Home and Abroad, 

June, 1894. 

D. S. Schaff, Homiletic Review, December, 1893. 
Joseph Cook, Our Day, throughout 1894. 

Morgan Dix, A Parliament of Religions, New York, 

James Pott & Co., 1894. 
F. Max Miiller, Deutsche Rundschau, Berlin, March, 

1895. 

F. Max Miiller, The Arena, December, 1894. 

E. Portalie, fttudes Religieuses, Paris, September, 1894. 

G. Bonet-Maury, Revue des Deux Mondes, August, i8g4. 
Frederick Passy, Le Congres des Religions, a, Chicago, en 

1893. 

401 



402 CHRISTIANITY, THE WORLD-RELIGION. 

Frederick Passy, Le Congrh des Religions, Paris. 

George Dana Boardman, The Parliament of Religions, 
Philadelphia Baptist Print, 1893. 

The White City and the Parliament of Religions, two ser- 
mons by Rev. M. J. Savage, Boston, Geo. H. Ellis. 

Note i, p. 296. 

For an interesting account of Akbar's Council, see the 
life of that emperor by Le Compte F. A. de Noer, trans- 
lated from the German by Professor G. Bonet-Maury, 
Leyden, E. J. Brill, 1883; Paris, Ernest Leroux. Perhaps 
the most interesting part is the story of the Jesuits who, by 
the invitation of the Emperor, made a difficult journey of 
forty-three days from Goa, arriving at the Emperor's 
palace in Fatehpur-sikri on the 18th of February, 1580. 
The Three Jesuit "padres" were Rodolfo Aquaviva, 
Antonio de Monserrat and Francisco Enriques, men of 
great ability, who presented to the Emperor, among other 
things, a new edition of the Bible and two images, one of 
Jesus and the other of the Virgin Mary. (To facilitate 
their conferences with the Emperor they were soon given 
apartments in the palace itself.) 

In order to give some idea of the bitterness which char- 
acterized this so-called Parliament of Religions, I quote the 
following paragraphs from Le Compte F. A. de Noer's His- 
tory, Vol. I, pp. 326-327: 

"Les conferences du jeudi soir a lTbadat-Khana offrirent 
le spectacle attrayant d'un Concile, ou presque toutes les 
grandes religions de l'univers etaient representees. Les 
'Padres' plaiderent leur cause avec la superior-ite que leur 
donnait l'erudition et la subtilite scolastiques ; et, comme 
du Jarric le raconte avec une visible satisfaction, les theo- 
logiens musulmans ne trouverent pas d' objections suffi- 
santes. Ironie singuliere de l'histoire ! Les Maures mus- 
ulmans avaient un jour fait fieurir toutes les sciences, 
y compris la dialectique d'Aristotle dans la presqu'ile 
Pyreneenne; leurs successeurs Chretiens avaient recuilli le 
riche heritage et e'etaient eux, a leur tour, qui retorquaient 
contre les sectateurs du Coran les armes forgees par des 



NOTES. 403 

musulmans. Ces maudits moines appliquaient la denom- 
ination et les attributs du diable a Mahomet, le meilleur 
des Prophetes (que la grace de Dieu repose sur lui et sur 
toute sa maison!) ce que des demons euxmeme n'eussent 
pas ose faire. " 

Note 2, p. 298. 

Among the Anglican divines, giving their adhesion to 
the Parliament of Religions, may be mentioned, Dr. Car- 
penter, bishop of Ripon, the late Bishop Phillips Brooks of 
Massachusetts, Bishop Thomas M. Clark of Rhode Island, 
Bishop Whitehead of Pittsburg, Bishop Grafton of Fond 
du Lac, Bishop McLaren of Chicago, Bishop Spaulding of 
Colorado, Bishop Scarborough of New Jersey, the late 
Bishop Knickerbacker of Indiana, Bishop Seymour of 
Springfield, Bishop Whittaker of Pennsylvania, Bishop 
Whipple of Minnesota, Bishop Sullivan of Algoma, Bishop 
Tuttle of Missouri, Bishop Gillespie of Grand Rapids, 
Bishop Hare of South Dakota, Bishop Burgess of Quincy, 
Bishop Perry of Iowa, Bishop Paret of Maryland, Bishop 
Nicholson of Milwaukee, Bishop Johnston of Western 
Texas, Bishop Smith of Sydney, Australia, Bishop Holly 
of Hayti. 

Note 3, p. 299. 

"For what am I going — for vain glory? Nay. To run 
away from my persecutors? Nay. For physical pleasure? 
Nay. For what, then? To lay the noblest aspirations of 
my country and my people before the judgment-seat of 
mankind; to glorify God in the land of the living, as I 
have glorified Him in this land of death; to bear witness 
that the spirit of God is infinitely active and alive, still 
evolving human destiny to higher inheritances, and shap- 
ing the future so much more glorious than the past; that 
the ideal may be made actual; that aspiration, communion, 
prayer, may be assured in their reality by the acceptance 
of all nations; that the New Dispensation of God preached 
to a few hitherto may dawn upon the whole world, I go." 
Heart-Beats, Mozoomdar, p. 91. 



404 CHRISTIANITY, THE WORLD-RELIGION. 

Note 4, p. 301. 

"There are few things which I so truly regret having 
missed as the great Parliament of Religions, held in Chi- 
cago as a part of the Columbian Exposition. Who would 
have thought that what was announced as simply an aux- 
iliary branch of that exhibition could have developed into 
what it was; could have become the most important part of 
that immense undertaking; could have become the greatest 
success of the past year, and, I do not hesitate to say, could 
now take its place as one of the most memorable events in 
the history of the world? Even in America, where people 
have not fully lost the faculty of admiring, and of giving 
hearty expression to their admiration, the greatness of that 
event seems to me not yet fully appreciated, while in other 
countries vague rumors only have as yet reached the pub- 
lic at large of what took place in the Religious Parliament 
at Chicago. Here and there, I am sorry to say, ridicule 
also, the impotent weapon of ignorance and envy, has been 
used against what ought to have been sacred to every man 
of sense and culture; but ridicule is blown away like offen- 
sive smoke; the windows are opened, and the fresh air of 
truth streams in." Prof. F. Max Miiller, The Arena, De- 
cember, 1894. 

"Die grossartigste und vielleicht folgenreichste Idee, 
die in unserem, seinem Ende entgegeneilenden Jahrhun- 
dert zur Ausfiihrung gelangt ist, war die Versammlung 
von Vertretern aller Religionen zur Zeit der grossen Wel- 
tausstellung in Chicago im Jahre, 1893. — In keinem 
anderen Lande der Welt hatte eine so kiihne weltumfas- 
sende Idee gefasst — viel weniger noch zur Ausfiihrung 
gebracht werden konnen !" 

"Wenn die Lehre von einer Ur-Offenbarung bisher von 
den Laien gutglaiibig hingenommen wurdc, so hat der 
Geist des Friedens, der die Versammlung in Chicago 
beseelte, aller Welt klar gelegt, dass es auf Erden wirklich 
eine Ur-Religion giebt, und dass die Spuren dieser, wenn 
auch vielfach missverstandenen, vielfach entstellten, viel- 
fach missgestalteten Ur-Religion eben jene zween Gebote 
sind, die, wenn auch theilweise stark verdunkelt, in alien 



NOTES. 405 

Welt-Religionen wieder zu erkennen sind." Prof. Wilhelm 
von Zehender, Munich. 

Note 5, p. 309. 

"According to habits of thought but recently broken up, 
God had only one Son. Our race, while in an unfilial mood, 
was not composed of the children of the Highest. By 
nature men belong to the animal kingdom ; to the kingdom 
of the spirit they belong only by the miracle of regenera- 
tion and the condescension of the Divine adoption. This 
opinion is no longer preachable or credible among thinking 
men. It is obviously inconsistent with Christian theism 
and Christian ethics. If it still lives in the schools, it is 
utterly dead in the great fields of militant Christendom. 
It is the mother of fatalism and despair. It postpones all 
Christian ethical appeal until regeneration has taken place, 
that is, until the animal has been made over into a man 
and a child of God; and, as that new creation is the work 
of the Eternal Spirit, Christian morality has no sphere of 
operation except in the extremely limited community of 
believers in their own regeneration. " The Christ of To-day, 
Gordon, p. 79. 

Note 6, p. 315. 

"Some gentle critics who see no good except in old 
stereotyped lines of action will doubtless forbode only evil 
from such a 'new departure.' They will consider the 
Church degraded, because she stood there in the midst not 
only of her own truant children, but even of the heathens. 
But the dear Lord, who has said that His Church must 
bring forth from her treasures 'new things and old,' and 
who has made her, as St. Paul says, 'a debtor' to all the 
outside wanderers and gropers, will be sure to view the 
matter differently. For Him alone was the work under- 
taken and carried on ; and to His honor and glory may all 
of its results redound." Archbishop John J. Keane. 

Note 7, p. 326. 

"India wants nothing so much as a religious revival, or 
rather a restoration. There is no real unity for the nation 



406 CHRISTIANITY, THE WORLD-RELIGION. 

except through one faith ; political unity is uncertain. The 
struggle lies in the future between a new religion for the 
people and revival of the old." India, Forty Years of Pro- 
gress and Reform, by R. P. Karkaria, p. 112. 

Note 8, p. 327. 

"It was a wonderful meeting, prophetic of great ad- 
vances in the spiritual life of mankind. When our holy 
faith is brought face to face with any other the comparison 
itself is an argument for Christianity. Believing as I do 
that Christ is that Light which is in every man who comes 
into the world, I shall be amazed not to discover the evi- 
dence of His presence and energy in all lands. This book 
is a sign of his coming, the glorious appearing of the Son 
of Man, a sign that He is even now the world's best life." 
Professor C. R. Henderson, D.D., on the Record of the 
Parliament of Religions. 



INDEX. 



Abbott, Dr. Lyman, 319. 
Abraham, 126, 133. 
Abyssinia, 81. 
Adler, Rabbi, 296. 
Africa, 61, 191. 
Agni, 376, 377. 
Agnosticism, decadent, 30. 
Akbar 292, 296, 323, , 402. 
America, Biblical origin of, 

193- 
progress of Christianity in 
194, 239, 294. 

American Christianity, hos- 
pitable and progressive, 
355, 356. 

Angelico, Fra, 228. 

Anglican Church and Parli- 
ament of Religions, 298, 

403- 

Anglo-Saxon race, 35, 97. 
Arnold, Matthew, 217, 269, 

355, 369. 
Arnold, Thomas, 233, 269. 
Asiatic, 35, 209, 210. 
Asoka, 48, 296, 323. 
Augustine, St. ,53, 83, 232. 
Avesta, 382. 

Bacon, 129. 

Balfour, Arthur J., 167, 263. 

Bascom, Professor, 305. 

Beha Allah, 38. 

Bernard of Clairvaux, 233. 

Bible, 157, 198. 

adapted to all, 175. 

and other sacred books, 
178, 180. 

an honest book, 183. 

an organic growth, 180, 
181. 



Bible as literature, 169, 184, 
382. 
not shaken by criticism, 

186. 
of divine origin, 184, 185. 
progressive revelation, 181, 

182. 
revision of, 157. 
spread of its influence, 

161, 163. 
translates well, 174. 
Blackie, Professor, 160. 
Boardman, George Dana, 

317, 389. 

Bonney, C. C, 300. 

Book of the Dead, 165. 

Brace, C. L., 362, 374, 385. 

Brahmanism, 378. 

Brahmo Somaj and Parlia- 
ment of Religions, 299, 

3". 

Brotherhood, human, 41, 96, 

156. 
Brooks, Phillips, 138, 389. 
Bruce, Professor A.B., 281, 

305, 316. 
Bryce, Professor James, 193. 
Buddha, Gautama, 125, 

135, 138, 148, 205, 214, 

220, 222, 226, 255. 
Buddhism and animal life, 

39i- 
and Christianity, 370, 371. 
and re-incarnation, 366. 
characteristics of, 91, 92, 

94, 95, no, 190, 207, 230, 

248, 255. 
effects of, 103. 
ethical, oriental, 59, 60. 
in China, 371. 



407 



408 



INDEX. 



Buddhism, missionary, 45, 
46, 47, 35i- 
scriptures of, 166. 
Bunyan, John, 230. 

Caird, John, 351. 

Caird, Principal Edward, 

68, 351, 354, 380. 
Calvin, John, 204. 
Candlin, George T., 318. 
Carpenter, J. Estlin, 292. 
Carroll, Dr. 194. 
Castelar, on Parliament of 

Religions, 309. 
Channing, 219, 279. 
Charity, 43. 
China, 134, 190, 192, 198, 

361, 362, 371. 
Christ and founders of other 

faiths, 202, 207, 213, 214. 
and prophecy, 205. 
bibliography of the life of, 

389. 
God's revelation for all, 

22, 113. 
His perfect moral nature, 

218, 227. 
idealism, 68. 
inspiration of love, 203. 
portrait in Gospels true, 

285. 
the distinctive truth of 

Christianity, 14, 34, 36, 

37, 44, 75, 202, 203. 
the incomparable, 392. 
the reconciler, 235, 324, 

325. 

the revelation of God, 136, 
153, 229, 230. 

universal Kingship of,227- 

universal Man and Sa- 
viour, 201, 240. 

words of, their influence, 
217. 
Christendom, greatness, 57, 
61, 62. 

sins, 75, 77, 81, 82, 84. 
Christianity an art, 233. 

and Anglo-Saxon peoples, 
72, 73- 



Christianity and other re- 
ligions, 31, 33, 34, 38, 62, 
78, 79, 82, 104, 136, 234, 
312. 

and twentieth century, 64, 
65, 102. 

a religion of facts, 257, 
258. 

changeable, 89, 90. 

conquests, 55, 56, 72, 85, 
86, 87, 195, 196, 274. 

democratic, 98, 101. 

described, 36. 

effects, 73, 74. 

greatest of facts, 274. 

historic character of, 243, 
289, 394. 

hopeful, 95. 

inclusive, 44. 

influence on nations, 98. 

and Hinduism, 353. 

living, 90. 

many-sided, 96. 

more than a creed, 37. 

of divine origin, 106, 275. 

progressive, 91, 92, 93. 

supernatural origin of v 
264, 286. 

universal and missionary. 
15, 16, 22, 35, 37, 41, 47, 
48, 52, 53, 55, 63, 69, 70, 

world's need of, 326, 327. 
Church of God, foundation 

of, 286. 
Civilization and Christian- 
ity, 92, 104, 105. 
Clarke, James Freeman, 351, 

374- 

Classical Literature, enthu- 
siasm for, 164. 

Coleridge, 191. 

Cologne Cathedral, 243, 249. 

Columbian Exposition, 304, 
331, 332. 

Columbian Exposition and 
Parliament of Religions, 
299, 300. 

Comparative Theology, 30, 
44, 68. 

Comte, Auguste, 228. 



INDEX. 



409 



Confucianism, 43, 48, 59, 

179. 254- 
Confucius, 148, 166, 20S, 

215, 220, 226, 389. 
Conscience, 123, 124. 
Conversions, the great, 231. 
Cook, Dr. Joseph, 314, 318. 
Curzon, George N., 362, 

371, 372. 

D'Alviella, 351, 374. 
Darwin, 101, 158. 
DeForest, J. H., 315. 
Dennis, J. S., 315, 317, 363. 
Desire not wrong, 68. 
D'Harlez, Mgr. 320. 
Dharmapala, 318. 
Dodds, Dr. Marcus, 352. 
Dorner, 204. 

Drummond, Professor Hen- 
ry, 28, 122, 190. 
Dudley, Bishop, 319. 

Ellinwood, Dr. F. F., 323, 
37o, 379» 39i- 

Emerson, 121. 

England, Christian Exten- 
sion of, 196. 

English Christianity, 367, 
368. 

Epistles of Paul, 273, 279. 

Ewald, 191. 

Fairbairn, Principal A. M., 
99, no, I56,374,375,379- 

Farrar, F. W., 72, 363. 

Fatherhood, God's, 112, 114, 
117, 118, 133, 156, 214. 

Fiske, John, 196. 

Fraser, Prof. A. C, 354, 374. 

Freedom, growth of, 93. 

Fremantle, W. H., 200, 237, 
352, 395, 396. 

Gibbons, Cardinal, 319. 
Gladden, Washington, 318. 
Gladstone, 57, 61, 233, 259, 

298, 333- 
God and conscience, 124. 
and history, 303. 



God, Christian doctrine of, 
112, 115. 

Hindu doctrine of, 125, 136. 

holiness of, 129. 

love of, 133, 137. 

Mohammedan doctrine of, 
135, 150. 

not localized, 126. 

omnipresent, 121, 122. 

personal, 120, 125, 142. 

spiritual, 121, 127. 

the redeeming, 132, 143, 
147. 

unity of, 116, 119. 
Goethe, no. 
Golden Rule, 43. 
Goodspeed, Geo. S., 156. 
Gordon, Dr. Geo., 200, 376, 

373, 405. 
Gore, Canon, 47, 151, 266, 

333, 374- 

Gospels, inspiration of lit- 
erature, 212. 
origin of, 272, 273. 
teaching of, 211. 

Goths, 88. 

Gottheil, Rabbi, 319. 

Grant, Principal G. M., 33, 
302, 352. 

Greek Church, 36, 236. 

Greek Language and Litera- 
ture, 53, 71, 206. 

Greek Philosophy ineffect- 
ive, 395. 

Griffis, W. E., 68, 91, no, 
361, 375. 

Grotius, 98. 

Haines, C. R., 351, 
Hamlin, Cyrus, 314. 
Harnack, 242. 
Harper, Wm. R., 292. 
Harrison Frederick, 370. 
Haskell, Mrs. C. E., 9, 23, 

25, 333, 337, 338. 
Hebrew Language, 53. 
Henderson, C. R., 406. 
Higginson, T. W., 319. 
"Hindu" (Madras), 346. 
Hindu Christians, 25, 26. 



410 



INDEX. 



Hindu Sacred Books, 171. 
Hinduism, absorbing power, 
33, 97, 113, 249, 372. 

and moral evil, 379. 

an idolatry, 364. 

national, 45, 59, 248, 254. 

origin of, not satanic, 356. 

philosophic, 365. 

tested, 79, 103, 125, 136. 
Hugo, Victor, 223, 380. 
Hume, Robert A., 319, 331. 
Huxley, Professor, 268. 
Hyacinthe, M. Loyson, 368, 
369- 

Incarnation, 139. 
India, 103, 106, 198. 
divisions of, 393. 
Dr. Barrows's journey in, 

335, 342. # 
lack of unity in, 360. 
religious need of, 405. 
India Lectureship, need of, 
13, 14, 322, 333. 
origin of, 9, 23, 24, 238, 
240, 287. 
"Indian Christian Herald," 

344- 
"Indian Evangelical Re- 
view," 345. 
Indian home life, 387, 
" Indian Social Reformer," 

347- 
" Indian Witness," 345. 

Jains, 358. 

Japan, 116, 159, 189, 192. 
Dr. Barrows's journey in 
342. 
Jessup, Henry H., 214. 
Jevons, 351, 375, 376, 385. 
John's Gospel, 161, 271, 272. 
Jones, Rev. J. P., 341, 356, 

357- 
Jones, Sir William, 191. 
Judaism, 48, 50, 53, 55, 58, 

119, 125, 126. 

Keane, Archbishop, 310, 317, 
405. 



Kellogg, S. H., 351, 374, 379. 
Kidd, Benjamin, 72, 304. 
Kingdom of Heaven, 56, 57. 
Kojiki, 166, 382. 
Koran, 135, 159, 160, 171, 

172, 173, 197, 254, 373. 
Kuenen, 69, 135, 352. 
Laotse, 43, 48, 166. 
Latin, 53. 

Lawrence, E. A., 363. 
Lightfoot, Bishop, 115. 
Lincoln, in. 
Lord's Prayer, 114, 309. 
Lotze, 118. 
Luther, 161, 204, 226, 231, 

233. 

Macdonald, Rev. Dr. K. S., 

18, 336, 376, 377- 
Mackichan, Dr., 340. 
Madagascar, 9, 18, 22, 190, 

191. 
Malabari, B. M., 359, 367, 

386, 393, 395. 
Manu, spiritual, 127. 
Manu, Laws of, 189. 
Martin, Dr. W. A. P., 78, 315. 
Martineau, James, 121. 
Maurice, Frederick D., 233. 
McGilvary, Daniel, 315. 
Menzies, 351. 
Merivale, 363. 
Messianic hopes, 50, 51. 
Metempsychosis, 365, 366. 
Mills, B. Fay, 319. 
Milton, John, 204, 233. 
Miracles, 258, 266, 267, 270, 

396, 400. 
Mitchell, J. Murray, 358, 359, 

373, 377- 
Moffat, Robert, 102. 
Mohammed, 148, 226, 390. 
Mohammedanism, character 
and mission of, 33, 42, 
45, 81, 89, 180, 207, 248. 
effects of, 364. 
limits of, 70, 104. 
not universal, 61, 62, 63. 
Monotheism, 117, 125, 129. 
Morality, real, 40, 41. 



INDEX. 



4 II 



Moses, 49, 120, 224, 226. 

Mozoomdar, 9, 18, 22, 209, 
231, 313, 3i8, 337, 338, 
390, 391, 392, 403. 

Miiller, Prof. F. Max, 17, 38, 
82, 104, 184, 351, 352, 
383, 385, 386, 403- 

Napoleon, 223. 
Neander, 152, 204. 
Newman, Cardinal, 74. 
Newton, 125. 
New Zealand, 196. 
Niebuhr, 269. 
Nirvana, 153. 
Non-Christian Literature, 

noble elements of, 383. 
Nouri, the patriarch, 341. 

Old Testament, 44, 48, 118, 

120. 
Orr, Prof. James, 307. 

Palestine, epitome of the 

world, 168. 
Palmer, Prof. Geo. H., 68, 

37o. 
Pantheism, 112, 116, 121, 125, 

140, 141, 145, 374, 380. 
Pariahs, 373. 
Parker, Theodore, 219. 
Parks, Edward A., 158. 
Parliament of Religions, 10, 

23, 34, 46, 114, 238, 292, 

328, 331, 333, 348, 401, 

402. 
Parsees, 58, 114, 166, 357. 
Pascal, 118, 221. 
Paul, the apostle, 115, 117, 

128, 145, 168, 170, 221, 

224, 231, 277, 297. 
Persecutions, the early, 85, 

86. 
Peter, the apostle, 285, 297. 
Pfleiderer, 351. 
Plato, 100, 116, 265, 269. 
Post, Dr. George, 315. 
Pressense, de, 152, 380. 
Prophecy, 44. 
Psalms, The, 177. 



Redemption, 132, 147. 
Reid, Gilbert, 315. 
Religion, absorbing power 
of greater religions, 33, 
41. 
greatness and universality 

of, 27, 42, 71, 72. 
origin of, 28. 
science and, 29. 
study of, 302, 303. 
Religious tests, 75, 80. 
Renan, 86, 222, 261. 
Resurrection of Christ, 271, 

277, 282. 
Rice, Rev. E. P., 22, 242, 

353, 362. 
Richter, Paul, 223. 
Ritter, Carl, 163. 
Roman Catholic church, 236. 
Roman Empire, 48, 77, 85, 

86, 100, 206, 282. 
Romanes, Professor, 273. 
Rousseau, 226. 

Sacred Books of the East, 

38, 382, 383. 
Saussaye, 35T. 
Schaff, Dr., 176, 309, 317. 
Schultz, Dr. Hermann, 22, 

no, 200, 242, 374. 
Scott, A., D.D., 352. 
Sen, Keshub Chunder, 209, 

337, 360, 388, 390. 
Sikhs, 157, 357. 
Simon, D. W., 574. 
Slater, Rev. T. E., 156, 314, 

340, 353, 378, 380, 383, 

384. 
Slavery, 89, 93. 
Smith, Robertson, 177, 251, 

395, 
Socrates, 223, 226, 390. 
Soma, 377. 

Spencer, Herbert, 70, 73, 124. 
Spinoza, 141. 
Spirit of God, everywhere, 

25- 
Stanley, Dean, 269. 
St. Francis of Assisi, 233. 
St. Hilaire, 107, 220. 



412 



INDEX. 



Storrs, Dr. R. S., 363. 
St. Peters Church, 130, 131. 
Strauss, 141, 264. 
Sympathy, Buddhist and 

Christian conception of, 

392. 

Tagore, Sir J. M., reception 

by, 335- 
Tamil Proverbs, 179. 
Ten Commandments, 187, 

188. 
Tennyson, 234, 292, 298. 
Thayer, Prof. John H., 306. 
Theism, Christian, 123, 127. 

literature of, 374. 
Toleration, 39, 40. 
Trench, Archbishop, 43. 
Trinity, 140, 268. 
Tyler, C. M., 351. 

Unity of Mankind, 40, 41, 

45- 
Universal Book, 157, 198. 
University of Chicago, 10, 

23> 33*5. 
Upanishads, 156, 167, 193, 
378, 379. 38o, 383, 384. 

Varuna, 118, 374. 



Vedas, 137, 138, 152, 166, 

193, 382, 386. 
Victoria, Queen, 197. 
Vincent, Bishop J. H., 321. 
Virgil's Eclogues, 380. 

Warren, President, 305, 365. 

Washburn, Pres. George, 
79. 3i8. 

Welinkar, Prof. N. G., 353, 
363, 387. 

Wesley, John, 231, 233. 

Westcott, B. F., 374. 

Wherly, E. M., 314. 

Whittier, 292. 

Williams, Sir Monier, 45, 
94, 372, 374. 387, 388. 

Wolkonski, Prince, 318. 

Womanhood and Christian- 
ity, 89, 97, 188, 189, 232. 

Womanhood in India, 386, 

387. 
World-religion, not eclectic 
merely, 31, 32. 

Xenophon, 223. 

Zehender, Prof. Wm. von, 

404, 405- 
Zoroaster, 152, 389. 



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